r 


DISTINCTION 

AND    THK 

CRITICISM    OF    BELIEFS 


PRINTED     BY 

AND    CO.,     NEW-STRHET    SQUARR 
LONDON 


' 


DISTINCTION 


AND     THE 


CRITICISM    OF    BELIEFS 


BY 

ALFRED    SIDGWICK 


'  Clear  and  distinct  ideas  are  terms  which,  though  familinr 
and  frequent  in  men's  mouths,  I  have  reason  to  think  every  one 
who  uses  them  does  not  perfectly  understand  ' 

'Though  the  schools,  and  men  of  argument,  would  perhaps 
take  it  amiss  to  have  anything  offered  to  abate  the  length  or 
lessen  the  number  of  their  disputes,  yet  methinks  those  who 
pretend  seriously  to  search  after  or  maintain  truth  should  think 
themselves  obliged  to  study  how  they  might  deliver  themselves 
without  obscurity,  doubtfulness,  or  equivocation,  to  which  men's 
words  are  naturally  liable,  if  care  be  not  taken  ' 

LOCKK 


LONDON 
LONGMANS,     GREEN,     AND     CO. 

AND  NEW  YORK.  :  15  EAST  16"'  STREET 
1892 

All    rights     rcietrtii 


PREFACE 


THE  object  of  this  book  is  not  complacently  to  put 
forward  a  recondite  system  of  certainties,  but  to 
raise  and  discuss  from  an  ordinary  point  of  view 
some  questions  which  seem  to  me  interesting, 
many-sided,  and  hard  to  answer.  The  faith  in 
which  it  is  written  is  that,  so  far  as  people  gene- 
rally dislike  philosophy,  it  is  rather  the  name  than 
the  thing  itself  that  they  dislike — the  name,  with 
its  supposed  pretensions  of  superiority.  From 
modesty  alone  many  people  hide  from  themselves 
their  own  philosophical  inclinations,  and  start  with 
a  prejudice  against  any  writer  who  confesses  such 
inclinations  openly.  Perhaps  no  complete  defence 
is  possible.  However,  the  truth  remains  (and  the 
charitable  reader  will  see  it)  that  I  do  not  think 
there  is  at  present  room  for  anything  like  authority 
in  treating  these  questions.  They  present  to  me, 
therefore,  not  a  chance  of  playing  the  oracle,  but 
at  most  a  chance  of  joining  others  in  their  own 
pursuit  of  truth. 


.1 039877 


vi  PREFACE 

Some  charitable  consideration  for  the  style  may 
also  be  claimed  in  other  respects.  For  instance, 
technical  terms  cannot  entirely  be  dispensed  with, 
try  as  hard  as  one  may  to  write  the  plainest 
English.  And,  again,  satisfactory  examples  are 
difficult  to  select,  for,  the  clearer  and  more  familiar 
they  are,  the  more  they  tend  to  be  trivial.  In  these 
and  similar  matters  a  writer  has  to  find  his  way  as 
well  as  he  can  between  opposite  dangers,  and  can- 
not expsct  entire  success  in  doing  so. 

I  am  greatly  indebted  to  a  critic  (Mons.  G. 
Fonsegrive,  in  the  Revue  PJiilosophique)  who  pointed 
out  some  defects  in  a  book  I  published  some  years 
ago.1  It  was  in  the  attempt  to  remedy  those 
defects  that  much  of  the  view  here  taken  was 
reached. 

And  I  am  still  more  grateful  to  Mr.  Carveth 
Read  for  the  important  corrections  he  has  sug- 
gested, both  in  the  proof-sheets  and  in  earlier 
stages  of  the  work. 

April,   1892. 

1  Fallacies  (International  Scientific  Series). 


CONTENTS 


PACK 

The  meaning  of  'Ambiguity.'1     '  Unreal  Distinctness  '  as 
its  cause. 

CHAP.      I.    PRELIMINARY  SKETCH   OF   THE   SUBJECT.          1 
,,         II.    THE   NATURE   OF  ROUGH   DISTINCTION     .       14 

77/i?  extent  of  Unreal  Distinctness  that  exists  in  Language 
and  Thought. 

CHAP.    III.  PHILOSOPHY    AND    COMMON-SENSE   .            .  30 

,,          IV.  RIVAL    IDEALS      .            .            .            .            .       .  4! 

,,           V.    UNREALITY 58 

,,          VI.  TS  NATURE  CONTINUOUS   THROUGHOUT?  .  71 

,,        VII.  COMMON-SENSE      AS      DIVIDED      AGAINST 

ITSELF             ......  So 

,,      VIII.    SPOILT   WOEDS 88 

The  harm  that  is  caused  by  Unreal  Distinctness. 

CHAP.      IX.    THE    EFFECTS    OF   AMBIGUITY  .  .       98 

.,  X.    THE    DEMAND    FOR    STRICT    DEFINITION.     II j 

Rimedy :  the  escape  from  the  demand  for  strict  definition  by 
means  of  the  notion  of  '  sufficient '  definiteness,  or  the 
irrelevance  of  the  demand. 

CHAP.    XI.    THE    'SPECIAL   OCCASION*  .  .  .     131 

,,        XII.    THE    RELATIVITY    OF    DISTINCT. ONS        .       .     143 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAP.  XIII.    SOME    ILLUSTRATIONS 150 

„      xiv.  'PBOPER'  AND  'GENERAL'  NAMES      .        .    .  168 
,,       xv.   'REFERENCE-NAMES' 179 

,,         XVI.    THE   CRITICISM  OF   DISTINCTIONS    IN    RELATION 

TO  BELIEF  .,  .  .  .  .  .  191 
,,  XVII.  SCEPTICISM  AND  CONCILIATION  .  .  .  .  2O2 
,,  XVIII.  GENERAL  SUMMARY 225 

APPENDIX 

Nameable  Things  ........  253 

Thought  and  Language     ........  256 

Thinghood 257 

The  Continuity  of  Nature         .......  259 

MilPs  ' Inductive  Canons '  .         .         .         .         .         .261 

Some  Examples  from  Philosophy        ......  264 

Middle  Term  and  Major  Premiss  ......  267 

INDEX.  .     .271 


DISTINCTION 


CHAPTER   I 


As  everyone  knows,  there  are  plenty  of  topics 
which  are  full  of  a  sort  of  amateur-philosophical 
interest ;  topics  which,  on  the  one  hand,  are  marked 
off  from  mere  gossip,  or  anecdote,  or  talk  about 
places,  as  being  more  general  and  less  matter-of- 
fact  than  these,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  are  marked 
off  from  technical  discussions  as  being  freely  carried 
on  in  our  everyday  language,  and,  on  the  surface 
at  least,  requiring  no  special  education  or  training. 
In  the  hurry  and  press  of  business,  and  of  the 
wider  business  of  living  our  lives  successfully,  our 
attention  is  mostly  fastened  on  matters  of  what  is 
called  practical  interest  and  importance — on  the 
things  that  we  are  somehow  bound  to  know  under 

B 


DISTINCTION 


penalty  of  failing,  or  at  least  of  living  rather 
restricted  and  unsatisfactory  lives.  Few  are  the 
people,  however,  who  care  to  draw  the  line  very 
sharply  between  knowledge  of  this  sort  and  know- 
ledge that  lacks  practical  value  ;  we  trust  rather 
to  our  common-sense  tact  of  the  moment  to  keep 
us  away  from  barren  fields  of  speculation  ;  and  all 
except  the  dullest  and  most  unfortunate  of  us  are 
well  aware  that  plenty  of  subjects  that  lie  a  little 
aside  from  our  regular  habits  of  pursuit  would  be 
found  interesting  and  important  if  we  had  time  to 
pursue  them.  So  it  comes  about  that  we  play 
with  some  of  these  less  pressing  subjects  now  and 
again,  unbend  our  minds  over  them,  or  even  take 
sides  and  discuss  them  with  real  though  fleeting 
interest.  Such  subjects  come  up  in  the  course  of 
conversation,  or  we  light  upon  them  by  accident  in 
a  review  or  a  book  ;  and  every  time  this  happens 
we  bestir  ourselves  afresh,  and  resolve  that  now  at 
last  we  will  make  the  matter  finally  clear  to  our 
own  comprehension  ;  we  will  make  sure  once  for 
all,  let  us  say,  what  Darwin's  theory  was,  and  how 
much  of  it  survives  in  spite  of  criticism  ;  or  what  is 
exactly  the  weakness  of  Fair-trade  proposals,  or 
of  existing  Socialist  theories ;  we  will  come  to 
terms  with  ourselves  in  regard  to  some  puzzling 
item  in  our  professed  political  or  religious  faith. 


PRELIMINARY  SKETCH 


And  yet,  somehow,  next  time  the  question  assails 
us,  after  a  lapse  of  weeks  or  months,  we  are  rather 
vexed  to  find  that  our  good  resolution  came  to 
very  little  after  all  ;  we  have  forgotten  the  clue  we 
thought  we  had  found,  and  the  old  puzzle  recurs, 
and  is  just  as  fresh  and  just  as  elusive  as  ever. 

In  dealing  with  all  these  recurring  puzzles — 
these  numerous  wordy  or  'notional'  topics  of 
dispute — the  attempt  to  unravel  ambiguities  of 
language  has  long  been  known  to  be  useful.  It  is 
the  first  vague  general  clue  we  discover,  and  it 
remains  our  best  safeguard  when  the  last  word  is 
said  ;  and  though  to  acquire  the  fullest  and  fairest 
use  of  this  clue  is  a  matter  of  endless  education, 
yet  a  good  deal  can  certainly  be  done  by  setting 
ourselves  upon  the  right  track  for  acquiring  it, 
from  the  beginning.  That,  accordingly,  is  the  main 
purpose  of  the  present  book  :  we  are  to  see  as  well 
as  we  can  what  this  aim  at  clearness  of  language 
means  and  involves,  and  we  are  to  review  and 
revise  some  of  our  present  ideas  as  to  attaining  it. 

One  of  the  first  things,  therefore,  to  ask  our- 
selves is,  what  we  shall  mean  by  ambiguity,  and 
here  I  have  a  suggestion  to  make  that  I  hope  will 
be  found  of  service.  Roughly,  an  '  ambiguous ' 
word  may  be  defined  as  a  word  with  two  or  more 

B  2 


DISTINCTION 


meanings  ;  it  is  not,  however,  the  bare  fact  that  a 
word   has   two   or  more  meanings  that  makes  it 
ambiguous  in  any  effectual  sense,  but  the  fact  that 
its  two  or  more  meanings  are  in  practice  confused- 
The  examples  of  ambiguous  (or  '  equivocal ')  words 
that  are  commonly  given  in  books  on  logic  rather 
draw  attention  away  from  the  most  effectual  kind 
of  ambiguity.     Names  like  pound,  or  foot,  or  post, 
may  certainly  be  said  to  have  two  or  more  mean- 
ings,  but   a   word    is    not   ambiguous  as  used  in 
assertion,  unless  there  be  real  doubt  which  sense 
is  intended.     And  such  doubt  hardly  ever  arises  in 
the   case  of  words  that  are  well  known  to  have 
several  different  senses,  for  then  the  need  of  letting 
the  context  explain  them  is  evident  to  assertor  and 
audience  equally.      You  can  make  puns  upon  a 
word  \\Vie.  pound,  or  foot,  or  post,  but  you  can  hardly 
by  means  of  them  mislead  either  yourself  or  the 
most   uncritical   audience.      Instead,  therefore,  of 
thinking   of  ambiguity  as   if  it  lay  in  the  mere 
existence  of  two  distinct  meanings  for  the  same 
word,  it  is  better  to  view  it  as  consisting  in  vague- 
ness of  outline,  which  is  chiefly  shown  in  uncertainty 
as  to  the  cases  supposed  to  come  under  the  name. 
In  one  of  its  meanings,  for  instance,  a  word  like 
civilised  might   include   the   founders   of    Carson 
'  City,'  or  the  miners  of  Euchre  Flat ;   used  in  a 


PRELIMINARY  SKETCH  5 


somewhat  narrower  sense  it  might  exclude  them  ; 
or,  at  any  rate,  doubtful  examples  of  its  applica- 
bility are  easy  to  find — cases,  that  is,  where 
different  people  would  use  the  word  with  different 
meanings.  Or  think  of  the  ambiguities  that  arise 
out  of  words  like  hero,  gentleman,  artist,  patriot, 
and,  in  fact,  all  our  commonest  epithets  implying 
praise,  or  blame,  or  contempt.  Different  people 
put  different  meanings  upon  them,  and  so  they 
become  misleading. 

That  the  absence  of  clear  definition  is  the 
source  of  all  the  most  effective  ambiguity,  will 
perhaps  become  plainer  as  we  proceed  to  notice 
examples  of  various  sorts.  But  a  reason  may  also 
be  given  which  will  help  us  to  understand  the 
truth  more  clearly.  Ambiguity,  like  every  insidious 
fault,  is  most  effective  where  it  is  least  suspected, 
least  easy  to  see  at  a  careless  glance.  And  natur- 
ally this  occurs,  to  the  greatest  extent,  not  where  a 
word  means  widely  and  strikingly  different  things, 
like  pound  and  pound,  but  where  the  things  it 
means  are  nearly  the  same  on  the  surface  and  only 
differ  in  deeper  or  more  occasional  ways.  Every 
class-name  l  groups  together  things  (or  people  or 

1  I  here  use  this  to  include  every  general  (or  descriptive)  name. 
The  distinction  between  the  substantive  and  the  adjective  or  verb  is 
irrelevant.  See  also  pp.  173-5. 


DISTINCTION 


cases)  which  resemble  each  other  in  some  respects 
and  differ  in  others ;  and  the  question  is  always 
liable  to  arise  whether  on  some  given  occasion  of 
its  use  the  resemblance  or  the  difference  is  the 
more  important  And  hence  the  most  effective 
kind  of  ambiguity  occurs  where  a  word  in  much 
of  its  everyday  use  is  plain  and  unmistakable,  and 
only  becomes  ambiguous  on  comparatively  rare 
occasions.  A  name  like  work,  a  distinction  like 
that  between  work  and  play,  will  serve  roughly  to 
illustrate  the  kind  of  cases  here  referred  to.  For 
children,  for  boys  at  school,  for  day-labourers,  for 
officials  generally,  and  perhaps  for  most  of  those 
who  go  six  days  a  week  to  the  place  where  their 
money  is  made,  there  is  seldom  any  practical  doubt 
about  the  distinction.  The  schoolmaster  or  the 
employer  of  labour  knows  pretty  well  which  of  his 
boys,  or  which  of  his  hands,  are  the  hardest 
workers  ;  the  world  as  a  rule  finds  out  its  thoroughly- 
idle  men.  But  with  some  professional  and  semi- 
professional  classes — poets,  and  artists  generally, 
for  example — the  case  is  different ;  the  best  of 
their  work  is  not  always  that  part  over  which  most 
effort  or  patience  is  expended,  and  though  even  the 
greatest  genius  probably  has  to  undergo  some 
drudgery,  there  is  a  point,  easily  reached  as  a  rule 
in  all  artistic  work,  where  drudgery  begins  to  spoil 


PRELIMINARY  SKETCH 


the  results — to  make  them,  as  the  saying  is,  smell  of 
the  midnight  oil.  Besides,  the  artist  will  often  be 
liable  to  have  forced  upon  him,  from  within  if  not  by 
other  people,  doubts  as  to  whether  even  his  greatest 
efforts  are  properly  '  work '  at  all,  or  whether  his 
results  at  their  best  have  any  serious  value ;  he 
might  have  been  helping  to  build  lighthouses,  or  to 
conquer  kingdoms,  instead  of  staying  at  home  '  to 
play  with  paper  like  a  child.'  But  a  distinction 
like  that  between  work  and  play  is  a  comparatively 
obvious,  and  therefore  comparatively  harmless, 
source  of  confusion.  The  finer  degrees  of  the  diffi- 
culty may  best  be  illustrated  by  some  case  where 
doubts  as  to  the  line  never  actually  arise  in  prac- 
tice, but  only  in  theorising — for  example,  our 
fundamental  notions  of  physics,  where  distinctions 
that  are  perfectly  valid  for  all  practical  purposes 
are  carried  over  into  regions  where  their  validity 
holds  no  longer.  The  distinction  between  motion 
and  rest  is  one  of  the  simplest  and  most  familiar 
of  these  cases  ;  absolute  rest  is  unknown  to  us,  yet 
all  motion  is  measured  by  rest.  And  it  is  notorious 
that  many  of  the  permanent  troubles  of  metaphysics 
arise  from  just  this  kind  of  ambiguity. 

That,  therefore,  is  the  reason  why  distinction, 
and  especially  rough  distinction,  is  the  central  sub- 
ject of  this  book.  Ambiguity,  in  its  most  effective 


DISTINCTION 


and  troublesome  form,  arises  out  of  the  '  real ' l 
roughness  of  distinctions  that  are  drawn  by  lan- 
guage as  if  they  were  perfectly  sharp.  We  are, 
therefore,  to  review  these  cases  both  in  a  general 
way  and  in  some  detail,  hoping  by  this  process  to 
systematise  what  we  already  vaguely  know  about 
effective  ambiguity,  and  about  the  mistakes  and 
puzzles  into  which  it  is  always  leading  us.  We 
shall  have  occasion  also  to  find  that  some  of  the 
views  that  are  apparently  held  by  common-sense 
require  a  certain  amount  of  correction  or  limita- 
tion ;  which  is  only  natural,  since  common-sense 
embodies  itself  in  no  single  or  definite  creed,  but 
embraces  many  different  stages  of  insight,  none  of 
which,  I  assume,  are  wholly  beyond  the  reach  of 
error. 

It  will  possibly  be  a  convenience  to  the  reader 
if  I  give  beforehand  2  a  short  general  sketch  of  the 
course  of  our  argument,  and  mention  some  of  its 
incidental  aims.  First,  then,  an  attempt  is  made 
to  discover  the  part  that  is  actually  played  by 
ambiguity  (or  rough  distinction)  in  confusing  our 
judgment  This  is  not  quite  a  simple  matter  to 
settle.  We  can  notice,  indeed,  the  extent  of  the 
use  of  rough  distinctions,  and  we  can  discover 

1  See  p.  22. 

*  Another  and  fuller  sketch  is  given  in  Chap,  xviii.  p.  225. 


PRELIMINARY  SKETCH 


pretty  clearly  the  manner  in  which  ambiguity 
works  when  it  disturbs  our  judgment  at  all,  but 
how  far  our  judgment  is  actually  disturbed  in 
given  cases  it  is  not  so  easy  to  see.  In  regard  to 
this  latter  question,  I  wish  at  least  to  recognise  the 
fact  that  common-sense  is  not  always  deceived  by 
indefinite  names,  but  that  it  often  uses  a  faulty 
distinction  with  full  or  sufficient  knowledge  of  its 
faults. 

And,  secondly,  in  the  process  of  getting  to 
understand  exactly  the  error  that  rough  distinction 
creates,  we  shall  find  it  necessary  to  discuss  the 
excuses  that  may  fairly  be  made  sometimes  for 
vagueness.  For  the  use  and  abuse  of  rough  dis- 
tinction lie  close  together,  and  a  knowledge  of 
each  will  help  to  explain  the  other.  This  enquiry 
is  one  that  may  lead  us  very  far  into  philosophy, 
but  the  interest  in  it  begins  long  before  what  is 
commonly  called  philosophy  is  reached.  For  at 
every  level  of  thought  we  are  soon  brought  up 
against  the  difficulties  that  arise  out  of  the  attempt 
to  define  our  words — that  is  to  say,  the  attempt  to 
draw  sharp  distinctions  where  the  things  distin- 
guished shade  off  into  one  another.  These  diffi- 
culties are  familiar  to  everyone,  and  I  hope  no 
apology  is  needed  for  trying  any  new  methods  we 
can  find  for  their  solution. 


io  DISTINCTION 


Our  main  purpose,  already  mentioned,  includes 
an  attempt  to  find  a  more  philosophical  method  of 
dealing  with  rough  distinctions,  in  place  of  the 
happy-go-lucky  tact  that  everyone  uses,  more  or 
less,  by  the  light  of  Nature  ;  and  of  incidental 
questions  that  arise  and  suggest  lines  of  further 
enquiry  there  are  a  considerable  number.  For 
instance,  we  can  hardly  avoid  some  general 
reflections  upon  the  nature  of  controversy.  Not 
only  does  controversial  matter  afford  the  clearest 
examples  of  the  error  that  ambiguity  causes,  but 
the  criticism  of  distinctions  and  definitions  is  very 
closely  allied  to  criticism  of  the  soundness  of  a 
judgment ;  and,  conversely,  the  ways  of  escaping 
from  such  criticism  (or  of  justifying  vagueness) 
are  also  ways  of  defending  an  assertion  against  a 
disputer.  Nearly  l  all  criticism — nearly  all  objec- 
tions to  any  belief — may  without  much  difficulty 
be  viewed  as  complaining  that  some  distinction  is 
rougher  than  the  believer  fancies  ;  and  to  discuss 
our  central  question  is  thus  at  the  same  time  to 
ask  what  is  the  full  force,  and  what  the  extent  of 
the  weakness,  of  the  objection  that  a  given  distinc- 
tion is  rough. 

And  another  subject  that  is  interwoven  with 

1  It  is  difficult,  but  not  impossible,  to  see  all  criticism  of  judg- 
ment as  criticism  of  distinction.     Seep.  193. 


PRELIMINARY  SKETCH  n 

our  main  enquiry  is  the  everlasting  struggle  that 
language  carries  on  against  difficulties  of  expres- 
sion. We  cannot  go  far  into  the  problems  of 
definition  without  being  forced  to  see  that  lan- 
guage, like  many  other  inventions  or  results, 
naturally  grows  and  develops  under  the  constant 
pressure  of  various  needs — needs  that  are  partly 
conflicting.  It  exists  by  yielding  to  the  living  and 
shifting  force  of  partly  opposite  aims.  Like  a 
machine  or  an  organism,  its  present  state  repre- 
sents a  long  succession  of  compromises,  of  gradu- 
ally wiser  attempts  to  find  the  best  combination  of 
antagonistic  qualities.  It  must,  for  example,  be 
ready,  and  yet  not  too  rough  ;  its  distinctions  must 
be  many  enough  to  cope  with  real  differences,  and 
yet  few  enough  for  the  average  man  to  remember ; 
it  must  take  its  stand  upon  existing  knowledge, 
and  yet  be  elastic  enough  to  welcome  a  conquering 
change  of  theory  ;  and  any  statement  must  be  long 
enough,  and  also  short  enough,  to  produce  the  re- 
quired effect.  Hence  the  faults  of  language,  like 
some  of  the  faults  of  human  beings,  may  be  viewed 
as  only  virtues  exercised  upon  the  wrong  occasion. 
This  does  not,  however,  prevent  their  calling  for  a 
remedy,  and  much  of  the  remedy  lies  in  knowledge 
— in  the  fullest  answers  we  can  give  to  the  question. 


12  DISTINCTION 


What  are  the  uses  and  the  abuses  of  rough  dis- 
tinction ? 

We  shall  also  make  a  closer  acquaintance  than 
mere  haphazard  experience  gives  us  with  the  way 
in  which  language  acts  as  a  drag  upon  the  progress 
of  knowledge.  There  is  a  certain  over-conservative 
tendency  in  our  thought  which  keeps  us  more 
under  slavery  to  words  than  we  need  be.  The 
weight  of  this  incubus  has,  indeed,  been  greatly  les- 
sened in  the  last  few  centuries,  but  we  have  not 
yet  arrived  at  a  wide  understanding  of  Hobbes's 
saying — that '  words  are  the  counters  of  wise  men 
and  the  money  of  fools.'  In  discussing  the  pro- 
blems of  distinction  we  shall  see,  better  perhaps 
than  in  any  other  way,  the  truth  that  words  are 
essentially  instruments  of  expression,  or  mean  just 
what  they  are  meant  to  mean  and  no  more. 

And,  lastly,  the  question  of  questions  in  philo- 
sophy, the  question  at  what  point  doubt  must 
come  to  an  end,  is  altered  suggestively  for  us  if  we 
admit  the  truth  of  the  views  here  taken.  For  the 
essence  of  scepticism  is  casuistry,  or  the  enquiry- 
after  a  definition  which  shall  be  applicable  to 
actual  cases,  instead  of  merely  general  and  abstract. 
We  shall  see  that  such  an  enquiry  can  never  be 
perfectly  satisfied,  and  that  therein  lies  the  strength 
of  the  sceptical  attack  ;  but  we  shall  also  see  that 


PRELIMINARY  SKETCH  13 

it  may  be  irrelevant  to  some  special  or  passing 
purpose,  and  that  by  such  irrelevance  the  destruc- 
tive force  of  scepticism  is  limited. 

So  short  a  statement,  however,  can  be  of  little 
service,  except  as  a  memorandum  after  the  subject 
has  been  thoroughly  discussed.  Its  total  meaning 
lies  in  the  details  of  meaning  it  covers,  and  one  of 
the  aims  of  the  present  book  is  to  give  a  sufficient 
number  of  these  details  to  satisfy  the  reader  that 
some  useful  work  remains  to  be  done  by  himself 
in  carrying  further  and  testing  more  fully  with 
concrete  examples  the  chief  suggestions  here 
put  forward. 

The  next  chapter  may  be  regarded  as  a  neces- 
sary evil.  It  attempts  to  explain  shortly  the  sense 
in  which  certain  words  and  phrases  are  used.  For 
readers  familiar  with  logic,  the  more  important  of 
the  explanations  are  :  unreal  distinctness  (p.  22  and 
note),  applicability  (p.  22),  and  ideal  and  actual 
(p.  27). 


.CHAPTER   II 

THE   NATURE   OF   ROUGH   DISTINCTION 

§  I.  Distinction  in  general. — By  a  distinction  will 
here  be  meant  what  is  commonly  meant  by  that 
name — a  recognition  in  thought  and  language  of 
a  difference  between  one  '  nameable  thing '  and 
another  or  others  ;  a  difference  between  A  and  B, 
or  A  and  non-A.1  The  process  of  distinction  is  a 
process  of  mentally  separating  this  and  that  object 
of  thought,  or  any  one  from  all  others.  To  dis- 
tinguish is  to  recognise  otherness  anywhere.  No 

1  The  expression  '  nameable  thing '  is  here  used,  in  preference 
to  '  thing,'  in  order  to  avoid  the  associations  of  the  latter  word  with 
reality.  Whatever  we  choose  to  mean  by  reality,  distinctions  may 
be  drawn  between  unrealities  just  as  well  as  between  realities,  al- 
ways provided  the  former  are  '  nameable '  and  so  correspond  to 
what  are  technically  called  '  general  notions ' — which  may  be  either 
substantival,  adjectival,  or  verbal.  Thus  A,  non-A,  B,  &c.,  repre- 
sent general  (or  descriptive)  names — i.e.  broadly  speaking  (see 
Chap.  xv. ),  any  common  nouns,  adjectives,  and  verbs — and  if  the 
reader  happens  to  find  the  practice  of  using  letters  troublesome,  he 
can  always  substitute  names  for  them  ;  for  instance,  life  and  death, 
alive  and  dead,  live  and  die.  And  see  Appendix,  pp.  253-9. 


THE  NATURE  OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION  15 


matter  how  large  or  how  small  the  difference  is 
supposed  to  be,  any  recognised  difference,  as  such, 
will  form  a  distinction  ;  the  separation  of  two  units, 
for  example,  is  just  as  much  a  distinction  as  that 
between  the  most  diverse  possible  things.  Dis- 
tinction of  some  sort  exists,  for  us,  wherever  we 
see  plurality,  since  plurality  is  a  form  of  '  other- 
ness.' 

From  this  it  follows  that  every  descriptive 
name,  as  such,  implies  a  distinction.  Whatever 
descriptive  meaning  it  has  is  due  to  its  separation 
from  a  background  l  — i.e.  from  all  '  other  '  things 
(or  qualities,  or  actions). 

To  distinguish  is,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  goes,  to 
define.  Where  any  two  notions  are  contrasted  we 
talk  of  the  distinction  between  them  ;  where  any 
one  notion  is  contrasted  with  all  others,  we  talk  of 
its  definition ;  so  that  the  process  of  definition 
includes  the  process  of  distinction,  and  only  differs 
from  it  in  being  more  sweeping  in  its  extent.  To 
understand  distinction  thoroughly  is  at  the  same 
time  to  understand  definition. 

§  2.  Rough  distinction. — By  a  '  rough '  distinc- 
tion we  shall  mean,  as  is  usually  meant,  a  distinction 
where  the  contrasted  notions,  even  at  their  sharpest 
(A  and  non-A),  cannot  be  applied  with  perfect 
1  See  also  p.  100. 


16  DISTINCTION 


exactness  to  actual  cases ;  where  the  actual  cases 
cannot  always  be  classed  with  strict  right  as  either 
the  one  or  the  other,  but  where  a  certain  proportion 
of  them  belong  to  a  doubtful  borderland. 

The  expressions  '  difference  of  degree '  and 
'  difference  of  kind  '  are  very  commonly  used  ;  and 
a  rough  distinction  is  a  distinction  that  depends  on 
a  difference  of  degree.  Words  like  large,  or  cold, 
or  heavy  are  familiar  examples  ;  differences  of  size, 
of  temperature,  of  weight,  &c.,  are  easily  seen  to 
be  gradual  differences  ;  whatever  grades  we  recog- 
nise are  plainly  artificial — made  for  convenience. 
For  even  admitting  that  the  extreme  ends  of  a 
given  scale  are  clearly  distinct,  where  do  the  '  ends ' 
begin  ?  How  are  the  ends  marked  off  from  the 
intermediate  region  ?  The  recognition  of  a  middle 
portion  at  all  is  only  our  way  of  confessing  a 
difficulty  in  separating  the  two  ends  sharply  from 
each  other.  It  does  for  the  moment  save  us,  but 
the  difficulty  recurs  when  we  ask  what  are  the 
exact  limits  of  the  intermediate  region.  Between 
the  opposites  good  and  bad,  for  instance,  we  insert 
a  vague  intermediate  region  called  indifferent; 
where  does  this  end,  or  what  are  the  exact  limits 
of  middle-age,  or  of  the  middle-classes  ? 

§  3.  '  Artificially  sharp  '  distinction. — A  distinc- 
tion drawn  too  sharply,  or  made  artificially  sharp, 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION    17 

is  the  same  as  a  rough  distinction.  Roughness 
means,  in  this  connection,  the  opposite  of  sharpness, 
and  at  the  first  glance  it  might  seem  difficult  to 
reconcile  these  two  notions  ;  but  the  difficulty,  if 
felt  at  all,  is  a  merely  verbal  one,  the  contradiction 
depending  upon  the  opposite  points  of  view  from 
which  any  given  distinction  may  be  regarded.  A 
distinction  is  drawn  too  sharply  where  the  things 
or  cases  distinguished  are  in  fact  only  roughly 
distinct — that  is  to  say,  where  the  '  real '  difference 
is  one  of  degree  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  a  distinction 
is  '  really '  rough  when  it  is  artificially  sharpened 
beyond  what  the  facts  will  justify.  When  we  call 
the  distinction  '  too  sharp,'  we  refer  to  the  distin- 
guishing idea  ;  when  we  call  the  distinction  '  rough/ 
we  refer  to  the  facts  distinguished. 

§  4.  Recognition  of  roughness  or  artificiality. — 
A  further  difficulty,  however,  in  connecting  rough- 
ness with  artificial  sharpness,  arises  from  the  fact 
that  the  artificiality  of  a  sharp  distinction  is  often 
so  plainly  recognised  by  common-sense  that  the 
distinction  is  not  in  practice  taken  sharply  at  all. 
Language  is  full  of  words  and  distinctions  that  are 
only  not  considered  definite,  or  distinctions  of  kind, 
because  their  artificiality  is  admitted  by  all.  Every- 
one knows  that  no  real  line  can  be  strictly  drawn  be- 
tween, for  instance,  a  bud  and  a  flower,  a  house  and 

c 


i8  DISTINCTION 


a  cottage,  the  rich  and  the  poor  man,  heat  and  cold, 
and  so  on  ;  everyone  sees  that  to  make  the  twenty- 
first  birthday  the  turning-point  of  legal  status  is  an 
artificial  proceeding ;  many  people  know  that  all 
our  epithets  distributing  praise  or  blame  are  ex- 
ceedingly vague  and  '  wordy ' ;  some  people  acquire 
the  habit  of  seeing  that  any  distinction,  as  such, 
lies  open  to  sceptical  doubts.  And  common-sense 
certainly  claims  to  exercise  a  kind  of  tact  in  using 
openly  faulty  distinctions  ;  claims  to  possess  the 
power  of  taking  and  using  them  lightly,  refusing  to 
press  for  anything  like  exactness  in  drawing  the 
line.  And  then  the  question  arises :  Is  there, 
properly  speaking,  any  actual  sharpness  of  distinc- 
tion at  all  where  the  artificiality  of  the  sharpness 
is  clearly  seen  and  discounted  ?  Is  not  roughness 
of  distinction  something  different  from  artificial, 
sharpness,  the  latter  only  occurring  where  a  rough 
distinction  is  mistakenly  supposed  to  be  sharp  ? 

Here,  of  course,  we  may  take  our  choice  which 
meaning  the  term  '  artificial  sharpness  '  shall  bear. 
Let  us,  then,  choose  to  make  it  exactly  synonymous 
with  roughness  of  distinction,  thus  regarding  it  as 
a  quality  of  the  distinction  itself  rather  than  of  the 
way  the  distinction  is  taken.  This  does  not 
dispose  of  all  the  difficulty  which  the  exercise  of 
common-sense  tact  introduces,  but  it  enables  us  to 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION     19 

postpone  that   difficulty  to  a  later   place  in  this 
book.1 

§  5.  How  are  rough  distinctions  possible  ? — An- 
other verbal  puzzle  may  also  deserve  to  be  shortly 
dismissed  at  the  outset.  Though  everyone  knows 
that  rough  distinctions  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
exist,  it  is  not  very  difficult  to  raise  an  apparently 
logical  doubt  as  to  whether  their  existence  is 
possible.  And  it  seems  worth  while  briefly  to 
meet  this  objection,  if  for  no  other  purpose  than 
that  of  beginning  at  once  to  rid  ourselves  of  the 
wrong  kind  of  fear  of  self-contradiction. 

It  must  be  admitted,  I  think,  that  the  phrase,  '  a 
rough  distinction,'  is  in  strictness  self-contradictory. 
Between  distinctness  and  indistinctness  there  is, 
in  idea,  no  middle  ground.  A  '  rough  '  line  is  not 
properly  a  line  at  all ;  and  so  far  as  a  distinction  is 
drawn  the  distinguished  things  are  distinct.  But 
the  explanation  of  the  phrase  is  simple  enough, 
and  reminds  us  at  once  of  numerous  other  occa- 
sions where  a  self-contradictory  term  is  found  in 
practice  useful.  Their  use  always  is  to  name  an 
intermediate  state,  whether  a  passing  stage  of 
development  or  not.  Thus  we  may  speak  of 
1  unconscious  hypocrisy,'  '  Tory  democracy,'  or  the 
even  more  easily  understood  phenomenon, '  melting 

1  See  especially  pp.  83,  135,  147. 


20  DISTINCTION 


snow.'  And  just  as  any  appreciable  quantity  of 
melting  snow  is  partly  snow  and  partly  water,  so 
we  may  steady  the  phrase,  '  a  rough  distinction,' 
by  remembering  that  whenever  two  classes  or 
notions  are  said  to  be  roughly  distinct,  that  means 
that  they  are  partly  distinct  and  partly  not  so. 
The  ends  of  the  scale  are  plainly  separate,  like  the 
snow  and  the  water,  but  a  middle  portion  is  inde- 
terminate— cannot  be  said  to  belong  exclusively 
to  either  end  of  the  scale. 

In  this  connection  we  may  notice  in  passing 
that  the  epithet '  so-called  '  can  often  be  turned  to 
useful  account  in  justifying  an  apparent  self-con- 
tradiction. When  anyone  objects  that  so  and  so 
(A)  cannot  possibly  become  something  else  (non- 
A)  by  any  process  of  gradual  change — for  example, 
that  '  man '  cannot  ever  have  been  less  than 
human,  or  that  unconscious  experience  cannot 
'  become '  conscious l — the  reflection  that  the  actual 
things  or  cases  in  question  are  only  so-called  A 
and  non-A,  that  these  names  are  perhaps  inexact, 
may  often  be  of  service.  We  are  all  too  ready  to 
see  in  words  a  mysterious  datum  behind  which  it 
is  impossible  to  go.  It  takes  a  long  apprenticeship 
to  realities  before  we  begin  to  get  free  from  this 

1  Cf.  Green's  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  pp.  18-20.     See  also  p.  215 
of  this  book. 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION     21 


illusion.  But  there  is  small  excuse  for  anyone  nowa- 
days remaining  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  Nature  is 
full  of  examples  of  a  development  which  appears  in 
our  clumsy  and  rigid  language  as  self-contradiction. 
Every  child  that  outgrows  childhood,  every  seed  or 
germ  that  becomes  other  than  seed  or  germ,  every 
fact  that  changes  its  character  in  the  least  degree, 
proves  to  us  daily  that  the  '  Laws  of  Thought,' 1 
those  pillars  of  elementary  logic,  are  too  ideal  and 
abstract  to  be  interpreted  as  referring  to  the  actual 
things  or  particular  cases  that  names  are  supposed 
to  denote. 

§  6.  Some  other  ways  of  characterising  rough 
distinctions. — We  need  not  insist  on  using  the 
epithet  '  rough  '  or  '  artificially  sharpened  '  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  possible  ways  of  describing 
the  fault  to  which  distinctions  are  liable.  Indeed, 
recognition  of  the  fault  is  so  common,  and  so 
plainly  important,  that  everyday  language  has 
thrown  up  many  other  forms  of  expressing  the 
same  meaning.  We  often  speak  of  '  broad '  or 
'  loose '  distinctions,  or  '  fluid  '  «or  '  slippery,'  and 
philosophers  sometimes  call  them  'abstract,'  or 
object  that  common-sense  '  takes  too  abstract  a 
view  of  the  facts  ' ;  sometimes  we  say  that  a  given 
distinction  'must  not  be  taken  quite  strictly,'  or 
1  See  p.  71,  ncte. 


22  DISTINCTION 


1  will  not  bear  pressure,'  or  '  is  clear  on  paper  but 
not  in  real  life '  ;  or  we  recognise  cases  where  '  the 
facts  are  more  complicated  than  the  names.'  And 
besides  these  that  come  first  to  hand,  there  are 
others  in  common  use,  but  we  may  be  content  to 
make  their  acquaintance  gradually. 

§  7.  Unreal  distinctness. — Another  convenient 
phrase  for  roughness  of  distinction  is  '  unreal  dis- 
tinctness.' As  this  name  is  meant  to  suggest,  it 
is  by  contrast  with  (what  are  taken  for)  realities  ' 
that  words  are  seen  to  imply  unduly  abrupt  dis- 
tinctions ;  the  discontinuity  of  language  is  noticed 
only  so  far  as  we  think  we  see  the  real  continuity 
of  Nature.  And  this  phrase  '  unreal  distinctness  ' 
will  often  be  used  in  the  following  pages  for  the 
fault  to  which  names  and  distinctions  are  so  liable. 
Some  further  explanation  of  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  chapter  on  Unreality. 

§  8.  The  applicability  of  distinctions. — But  a 
still  more  useful  phrase  is  the  '  applicability '  of 
names  and  distinctions  ;  a  name  being  vague,  or  a 
distinction  rough,  so  far  as  it  is  inapplicable  in 
concrete  cases.  That,  in  fact,  is  the  reason  why 
unreal  distinctness  matters.  Ideally,  there  is  never 
any  difficulty  about  a  distinction  ;  whatever  diffi- 
culty there  is  attaches  only  to  its  application.  Take, 
1  See  Chap.  v.  pp.  58-70. 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION     23 

for  instance,  the  notion  of  truth,  the  distinction 
between  truth  and  falsity.  Everyone  knows,  of 
course,  what  he  means  by  calling  a  statement  true, 
but  the  difficulty  is  to  sum  up  the  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  truth,  as  we  might  sum  up  those 
of  the  elephant  or  the  gorilla,  so  as  to  enable 
actual  specimens  to  be  identified  by  means  of  the 
description.  The  question  '  What  is  truth  ? '  can  be 
answered  easily  if,  like  Mr.  Chadband's  audience, 
we  are  content  with  a  merely  ideal  answer.1  In 
idea,  truth  and  falsity  are  distinguished  by  a  line 
of  absolute  sharpness  ;  where  either  begins  the 
other  ends,  without  an  intermediate  region.  It  is 
when  we  come  to  apply  the  distinction  to  actual 

1  To  express  the  background  of  a  name  by  tacking  to  that  name 
a  negative  prefix  (e.g. ,  organic,  inorganic}  is  merely  a  way  of  shirking 
the  question  how  the  line  is  to  be  actually  drawn.  It  leaves  the 
distinction  'ideal,'  without  attempting  even  to  suggest  the  actual 
particulars  of  the  contrast.  Often  when  the  sense  in  which  a  word 
is  used  lacks  positiveness— that  is  to  say,  when  the  actual  particulars 
intended  to  be  referred  to  are  left  doubtful— help  can  be  given  by 
contrasting  the  word  with  some  other  positive  notion  which  happens 
to  be  a  little  less  indistinctly  understood.  Difficult  notions,  such 
as  liberty,  or  justice,  or  discretion,  can  occasionally  have  some  false 
application  disclaimed  by  contrasting  them  with  one  opposite  rather 
than  another — say  with  slavery,  partiality,  rashness,  instead  of  with 
restraint,  or  mercy,  or  valour ;  and  in  plenty  of  pairs,  like  life  and 
death,  love  and  hate,  health  and  disease,  pain  and  pleasure,  each  of 
the  opposite  notions  helps  to  interpret  the  other,  by  supplying  our 
thoughts  with  more  or  less  of  remembered  actual  detail.  But  this 
aid  to  interpretation  is  lost  so  far  as  one  of  the  pair  of  names  is 
merely  the  '  formal  negative '  of  the  other. 


24  DISTINCTION 


cases  that  all  the  uncertainty  is  discovered.  On 
which  side  are  we  to  class  a  truth  that  has  some 
error  mingled  with  it,  or  an  error  that  contains  a 
certain  amount  of  truth  ?  And  when  does  the 
claim  that  a  given  truth  or  a  given  error  is  pure 
and  simple  cease  to  be  doubtful  ?  Truth,  we 
are  solemnly  told,  is  '  conformity  of  knowledge 
with  its  object.'  No  doubt  it  is  ;  but  when  does 
knowledge  so  conform  ? 

Thus  the  enquiry  after  a  definite  meaning  is 
always  the  enquiry  how  some  general  name  shall 
be  applied  to  particular  cases  ;  whether  such  and 
such  a  case  would  or  would  not  be  properly  classed 
as-  '  A.'  Whatever  special  form  the  enquiry  may 
take,  and  however  little  express  reference  may  be 
made  to  particular  cases,  such  is  always  the  central 
purpose  of  the  request  for  a  definition.  The  truth 
of  this  statement  might  be  tested  by  examining  an 
infinite  number  of  instances  in  detail ;  but  it  may 
also  be  verified  more  shortly  by  noticing  what 
happens  when,  in  answer  to  the  demand,  an  un- 
satisfactory definition  is  given.  From  a  philoso- 
phical, as  distinct  from  a  merely  literary,  point  of 
view,  there  is  only  one  kind  of  unsatisfactoriness 
that  definitions  ever  suffer  from — failure  to  tell  us, 
after  all,  exactly  what  things  or  cases  are  meant 
by  the  name  defined.  The  process  of  defining,  as 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION     25 

everyone  knows,  is  the  substitution  of  one  word 
(or  several)  for  another  ;  and,  except  for  the  sake 
of  following  custom,  we  need  only  take  care  that 
the  substituted  word  is  less  hard  to  interpret  than 
the  word  for  which  it  was  substituted.  The  enquiry 
after  a  definition  is  an  enquiry  after  meaning  ;  and 
meaning  is,  in  the  end,  always  interpretation  into 
fact.  If  a  word,  B,  ever  serves  to  explain  the 
meaning  of  another  word,  A,  that  is  only  because 
B  is  more  easily  interpreted  into  facts.  For  words 
are  not  valuable  in  themselves,  but  only  as  refer- 
ring to  something  beyond  them. 

The  demand  for  an  applicable  definition,  the 
attempt  to  make  an  assertor  translate  out  of  the 
abstract  or  ideal  into  the  concrete  or  actual,  to 
force  him  to  compare  the  solid  facts  of  the  case 
with  the  airy  notions  which  are  supposed  to  refer 
to  them,  is  a  plan  of  controversial  attack  that  is 
probably  as  old  as  controversy  itself.  In  the  hands 
of  Socrates  it  attained  to  the  dignity  of  a '  method,' 
and,  though  less  entirely  trusted  now,  and  made 
somewhat  less  rigid  in  application,  it  remains  in 
effective  use  at  the  present  day.  Every  reader 
will  remember  plenty  of  cases  where  the  matter-of- 
fact  enquiry  about  some  difficult  notion—justice, 
humour,  luxury,  culture—  has  been  put  forward 
with  telling  effect,  justly  or  unjustly.  '  Give  us  a 


26  DISTINCTION 


definition  that  we  can  really  apply  to  the  facts.'  It 
is  a  demand  identical  in  purpose  with  the  request 
for  '  a  single  definite  instance '  in  support  of  a 
sweeping  generalisation ;  and,  as  said  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  one  of  the  problems  we  have  to 
discuss  in  the  present  book  is,  how  to  hold  the 
balance  fairly  between  this  very  plausible  demand 
for  '  definite '  language,  and  the  best  excuses  that 
can  be  made  for  vagueness. 

§  9.  General  and  particular  grounds  of  application. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  perhaps  to  mention,  except 
for  the  sake  of  completeness,  that  a  name  or  dis- 
tinction may  lack  applicability  in  two  different 
ways  :  through  our  ignorance  of  the  general  grounds 
for  its  application,  or  through  our  ignorance  of  the 
facts  of  the  concrete  case  to  which  we  propose  to  apply 
it.  However  clearly,  for  instance,  we  know  what  a 
hero  means,  we  may  be  in  doubt  whether  Parnell  was 
a  hero  ;  and  however  well  we  know  Stanley  and  his 
actions,  any  flaw  in  our  general  notion  of  a  hero 
may  render  it  doubtful  whether  the  name  should 
be  applied  to  him.  To  apply  correctly  a  name 
like  hero  (or  a  distinction  like  that  between  hero 
and  charlatan]  demands  an  intimate  knowledge  of 
facts  that  are  often  misleading  when  superficially 
seen.  Boulanger's  valet  may  know  more  of  such 
facts,  or  even  less  of  them,  than  the  editor  of  an 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION     27 

English  newspaper.  Always  our  power  of  apply- 
ing a  distinction  to  actual  cases  is  limited  by  our 
knowledge  of  the  real  nature  of  those  cases,  and  as 
our  knowledge  grows  our  applications  will  alter. 
To  apply  always  with  perfect  correctness  the  dis- 
tinction between  truth  and  falsity  would  need  an 
omniscient  mind. 

§  10.  The  ideal  and  the  actual. — But  the  most 
useful  of  all  the  notions  which  help  us  to  under- 
stand the  subject  generally  is  one  for  which  I  can 
find  no  better  name  than  the  distinction  between 
the  ideal  and  the  actual.  As  already  said,  there  is 
never  any  difficulty  about  a  distinction  except  the 
difficulty  of  applying  it.  The  abstract  form,  or 
idea,  of  a  distinction  never  alters  ;  the  only  change 
that  comes,  with  our  changing  moods  or  our  grow- 
ing knowledge,  is  in  the  details  of  application,  the 
way  we  interpret  the  notions  contrasted,  the  kind 
of  things  that  we  call  A  and  non-A  respectively. 
Life  and  death,  good  and  evil,  truth  and  falsity — 
the  application  of  such  names  may  change,  but 
never  the  fact  of  contrast,  never  the  need  for  find- 
ing some  distinct  and  opposed  meaning  for  them. 
If  we  ever  say,  for  instance, '  Evil,  be  thou  my  good,' 
it  is  not  the  abstract  distinction  that  we  blur,  but 
the  concrete  application  ;  if  evil  is  to  be  our  good* 
something  else  must  be  our  evil. 


28  DISTINCTION 


As  an  easy  example  of  the  uses  to  which  this 
notion  and  phrase  may  be  put,  take  the  case  of  a 
distinction  like  that  between  animal  and  vegetable. 
Every  naturalist  allows  that  certain  organisms  may, 
for  all  he  can  say,  be  classed  just  as  correctly  on 
one  side  of  the  line  as  on  the  other.  Do  these 
organisms,  then,  belong  in  fact  to  an  intermediate 
class,  or  must  they  be  in  fact  either  animal  or  vege- 
table, one  or  the  other,  although  in  our  ignorance 
of  the  facts  we  cannot  class  them  definitely  ?  Such 
a  question  will  not  appear  a  serious  puzzle  to  any- 
one who  keeps  clearly  separate  the  ideal  and  the 
actual  aspects  of  a  distinction.  The  distinction 
between  animal  and  vegetable  may  or  may  not  be 
ideally  sharp  ;  that  depends  on  whether  we  choose 
to  make  it  so.  If  we  decide  to  recognise  an  inter- 
mediate class,  the  distinction  ceases  to  be  ideally 
sharp ;  and  only  if  it  is  ideally  sharp  can  we  have 
any  right  to  say  that  a  doubtful  organism  must 
actually  belong  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  two 
opposite  classes.  The  '  must,'  in  short,  depends 
upon  a  purely  arbitrary  arrangement  of  words  and 
meanings.  In  the  case  of  distinctions  like  hot  and 
cold,  or  old  and  young,  we  do  not  commonly  make 
the  line  ideally  sharp  ;  in  the  case  of  distinctions  like 
straight  and  crooked,  or  true  and  false,  we  do  make 
it  so  ;  and  in  the  case  of  distinctions  like  animal 


THE  NATURE   OF  ROUGH  DISTINCTION     29 


and  vegetable,  or  man  and  beast,  custom  appears 
to  be  at  present  a  little  uncertain.  The  question 
whether  '  animal '  and  '  vegetable  '  are  distinct  or 
overlapping  classes  is  answerable  precisely  in  the 
same  way  as  the  question  whether  fox-terriers  are  a 
distinct  breed  or  a  mixture  of  two  or  more.  The 
answer  depends  on  our  own  choice  of  a  definition. 

What  makes  this  double  aspect  of  distinctions 
important  is  the  fact  that  all  the  more  lively  and 
lasting  disputes  in  the  world  are  due  to  the  conflict 
of  rival  ideals  whose  actual  interpretation  is  diffi- 
cult And  by  shortly  reviewing l  the  nature  of 
these  more  permanent  sources  of  controversy  we 
may  now  begin  to  raise  the  question  as  to  the 
extent  of  rough  distinction  that  exists,  and  as  to 
its  influence  on  thought  and  opinion  generally. 
But  first  there  is  one  example  of  rough  distinction 
that  specially  demands  some  notice — the  distinc- 
tion between  philosophy  and  common-sense. 

1  Page  41. 


CHAPTER  III 

PHILOSOPHY  AND   COMMON-SENSE  l 

SINCE  the  difficulty  of '  drawing  the  line '  is  felt  in 
common  life  as  well  as  in  the  most  abstruse  philo- 
sophy, and  since  the  attempt  to  solve  that  diffi- 
culty is  in  its  very  nature  more  or  less  philosophi- 
cal, it  would  be  useful  in  any  case  to  explain 
the  way  in  which  the  relation  between  philosophy 
and  common-sense  is  here  throughout  conceived  ; 
and  there  is  all  the  more  advantage  in  doing  so 
since  the  contrast  in  question  forms  a  typical 
instance  of  unreal  distinctness. 

For  if  we  are  candid  we  must  confess  that  we 
do  not  very  clearly  know  what,  after  all,  philosophy 
is  ;  we  cannot,  at  any  rate,  give  an  '  applicable ' 
definition  of  it.  In  a  vague  way  we  all  know,  of 
course,  what  is  meant  by  the  term.  Our  views  are 
commonly  said  to  be  philosophical  in  so  far  as 
they  are  comprehensive,  many-sided,  remote  from 

1  The  philosophical  reader  is  warned   not   to   expect   in   this 
chapter  any  reference  to  Reid  and  his  followers. 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   COMMON-SENSE        31 

what  is  sordid,  grovelling,  or  '  practical '  in  the 
lowest  sense.  The  questions  that  are  specially 
called  philosophical  give  themselves  out  as  being 
the  largest  and  loftiest  questions  that  human 
curiosity  can  raise — questions  like  that  of  the 
existence  of  God,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  free 
will,  the  relation  of  man  to  the  universe  generally, 
and  similar  serious  topics.  Or,  again,  there  are 
certain  illustrious  names — Plato  and  Aristotle,  for 
example — names  of  men  whom  all  agree  to  call 
the  great  philosophers  ;  and  we  may  study  their 
works  until  we  are  able  to  say  a  great  deal  about 
the  earlier  history  of  most  of  our  modern  problems. 
Or,  again,  we  establish  professorial  chairs  of  philo- 
sophy, and  appoint  to  them  men  who  will  undertake 
to  lecture  in  various  named  departments  of  study, 
such  as  logic,  psychology,  and  ethics. 

Yet  we  do  not  arrive  at  an  applicable  definition. 
The  question  remains  unanswered,  what  it  is  that 
really  constitutes  this  subject  and  method  as  dis- 
tinguished, say,  from  science  or  from  common- 
sense.  If  the  name  '  philosophy '  is  to  be  given  to 
all  the  most  rational  attempts  to  answer  certain 
questions  that  we  agree  to  call  philosophical,  still 
we  are  left  asking  why,  then,  these  questions 
specially  deserve  the  name  ;  and  the  same  holds  of 
the  plan  of  naming  the  subject  from  the  writers  or 


32  DISTINCTION 


from  the  special  fields  of  study  :  we  then  have  to 
enquire  why  only  certain  men  deserve  to  be  called 
the  philosophers,  or  what  makes  logic,  psychology, 
ethics,  &c.,  departments  of  philosophy.  Nor  is  the 
decision  by  means  of  the  comprehensiveness  or  the 
loftiness  of  the  views  much  more  satisfactory.  At 
least,  if  this  be  made  the  decisive  fact,  it  is  hard  to 
see  why,  in  modern  times,  we  have  left  off  calling 
physics,  or  even  astronomy,  philosophical  subjects, 
and  have  shown  some  tendency  to  include  political 
economy  in  our  philosophical  courses.  And  clearly 
it  is  not  easy  to  say  at  what  point  views  begin  to 
be  comprehensive  or  lofty. 

When  the  term  '  philosophy '  is  understood  in 
the  light  of  its  everyday  applications — that  is  to  say, 
when  our  notion  of  its  meaning  is  derived  merely 
from  our  knowledge  of  the  questions  or  the  people 
or  the  books,  and  so  on,  that  are  commonly  called 
philosophical — it  is  hardly  surprising  that  some  dis- 
inclination should  be  felt  for  so  apparently  hopeless 
a  pursuit.  As  everybody  can  see  for  himself  at  a 
glance,  authority  in  philosophy  there  is  none,  or 
none  that  is  not  authoritatively  disputed.  If  you 
study  any  branch  of  science  you  find  an  increasing 
mass  of  knowledge  conquered,  a  fairly  constant 
progress  both  for  the  scientific  and  for  the  unscien- 
tific ;  there  authority  has  a  meaning.  But  if  you 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   COMMON-SENSE        33 


study  philosophy,  it  seems  that  you  either  follow 
some  teacher  and  belong  to  a  '  school,'  or  at  least 
are  almost  sure  to  be  suspected  of  that  narrowness. 
In  the  most  favourable  case  you  can  only  create  a 
limited  following  of  your  own.  For  a  time,  perhaps, 
you  and  your  disciples  will  occupy  a  half-way 
position  between  two  schools,  distrusted  by  both. 
And  when  these  disappear,  some  other  school  will 
have  established  itself  in  direct  opposition  to 
yours,  and  will  so  continue  until  a  new  temporary 
reconciliation  is  effected  and  the  old  round  begins 
again.  The  history  of  philosophy  can  indeed  be 
taught,  and  can  best  be  learnt,  by  those  who  are 
fonder  of  antiquarian  studies  than  of  direct 
attempts  to  answer  the  questions  raised.  So  that, 
in  the  end,  to  be  a  philosopher  is  either  to  fancy 
your  answers  more  final  than  they  really  are,  or 
else  to  know  what  other  philosophers  have  wrongly 
said,  and  yet  not  to  be  able  yourself  to  say  it 
rightly. 

So  unfriendly  a  statement  of  the  case,  however, 
is  of  service  rather  in  making  excuses  for  declining 
to  take  any  trouble  with  the  subject  than  in  dis- 
turbing those  who  have  already  begun  to  take 
some  trouble.  These  latter  would  call  it  a  carica- 
ture. They  would  rather  say  that  philosophy  is 
an  ideal  that  may  be  approached,  although  perhaps 

D 


34  DISTINCTION 


no  actual  person  or  doctrine  exactly  reaches  it  ; 
which  explanation  implies  that  no  such  thing  as 
philosophy  exists  in  the  world,  as  distinct  from 
science  or  even  from  common-sense,  but  that  all 
our  knowledge  is  more  or  less  philosophical,  and 
therefore  also  more  or  less  unphilosophical.  And 
the  deplorable  want  of  finality,  they  would  say,  in 
the  actual  doctrines  of  '  philosophy '  is  a  result  of 
their  partial  failure,  not  of  their  partial  success,  in 
reaching  the  ideal.  It  is  not  because  of  philosophy, 
but  in  spite  of  it,  that  we  are  still  to  some  extent 
puzzling  over  the  oldest  problems. 

We  all  agree  that  there  exists  some  difference, 
some  reality  of  contrast,  between  philosophy  and 
common-sense.  But  the  sharpness  of  the  contrast 
is,  doubtless,  very  variously  conceived.  There  are 
people  who,  in  the  name  of  philosophy,  appear  to 
aim  at  discarding  common-sense  altogether  ;  others 
in  the  name  of  common-sense,  succeed  to  a  great 
extent  in  avoiding  all  views  that  are  noticeably 
refined  or  difficult ;  and  others,  again,  occupy  a 
position  somewhere  between  the  two  extremes, 
attracted  now  by  the  delights  of  visionary  insight, 
now  by  the  notion  of  sanity,  repelled  now  by  the 
fear  of  getting  lost  in  cloudland,  now  by  dislike  of 
the  clumsy  roughness  of  ordinary  ways  of  thought. 
And  it  is  through  sympathy  with  these  latter — 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   COMMON-SENSE        35 

perhaps  the  most  numerous  class  among  those  who 
have  time  to  think  at  all — that  we  shall  best  learn 
how  artificial  the  contrast  is.  Our  own  experience 
of  changing  moods  in  regard  to  refinement  of 
insight  will  teach  us  more  forcibly  than  anything 
•else  can  that  philosophy  and  common-sense  cannot 
in  real  life  be  entirely  severed,  that  the  sublime  and 
the  ridiculous,  the  sane  and  the  stupid,  lie  near 
together  ;  that  the  two  opposed  ideals,  like  all 
other  opposed  ideals,  have  each  their  practical 
limitations. 

The  view  here  taken,  then,  is  that  philosophy 
is  only  common-sense  with  leisure  to  push  enquiry 
further  than  usual,  while  common-sense  is  only 
philosophy  somewhat  hurried  and  hardened  by 
practical  needs.  As  an  ideal,  philosophy  is  cha- 
racterised by  freedom  from  assumptions.  The 
attempt  to  criticise  assumptions  to  the  utmost  is 
the  distinguishing  feature  of  what  has  always  been 
recognised  as  the  philosophical  spirit.  Just  where 
science  leaves  off  questioning,  philosophy  (as  dis- 
tinct from  science)  begins.  But  the  philosophical 
spirit,  or  impulse,  is  only  one  among  others  that 
drive  us  on,  and  the  opposite  impulse  of  common- 
sense  inclines  us  to  dread  wasting  time  in  doubts 
and  refinements  that  are  useful  only  on  rare  occa- 
sions. Still  more  than  science,  philosophy  feels  an 

D  2 


36  DISTINCTION 


interest  in  exceptions  as  such  ;  while  common- 
sense,  like  its  feebler  cousin,  '  worldly  wisdom/ 
shuns  the  exception  and  loves  the  general  rule. 
Philosophy,  so  far  as  it  is  at  war  with  common- 
sense,  seeks  to  amend  faulty  rules  by  dwelling  on 
their  exceptions  ;  its  business  is  to  justify  truths 
that  to  common-sense  are  foolish  or  dangerous 
paradoxes.  The  business  of  common- sense  is  to 
justify  the  broader  aspects  of  truth,  to  be  ready 
though  rough,  to  be  right  in  most  cases  at  the  cost 
of  being  wrong  in  a  few.  And,  further,  we  may  say, 
perhaps,  that  the  difference  between  a  more  and  a 
less  philosophical  view  of  things  consists  in  greater 
or  less  acquaintance  with,  and  readiness  to  admit 
intelligently,  certain  notions  which  are  paradoxes 
to  the  commoner  kinds  (at  least)  of  common-sense. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  assumption  so  widely  made 
that  a  cause,  as  such,  is  prior  to  its  own  effect  ; 
the  denial  of  this  is  a  paradox  of  the  kind  referred 
to.  Here  and  there,  no  doubt,  the  admission  is 
made  by  common-sense,  in  a  rather  half-hearted 
way,  that  there  are  some  cases  where  '  it  seems '  that 
cause  and  effect  are  simultaneous,  or  cases  where  a 
relation  of  mutual  efficacy  '  seems  '  to  exist  between 
two  phenomena— say  panic  and  danger — or  where 
something  seems,  if  not  exactly  to  cause  itself,  at 
any  rate  to  hasten  its  own  growth  or  advancement, 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   COMMON-SENSE        37 


so  that,  for  instance,  '  nothing  succeeds  like  suc- 
cess.' But  these  cases  are  not,  as  a  rule,  taken 
quite  seriously  ;  they  are  regarded  either  as  mere 
illusions,  or  as  verbal  quibbles  or  epigrams. 
Common- sense  feels  sure  that  the  facts  are  not 
exactly  as  the  words  would  make  them  appear ; 
that  if  there  is  any  difficulty  in  applying  our 
ordinary  notion  of  cause  and  effect  to  them,  then 
some  way  out  of  that  difficulty  could  surely  be 
found  if  the  enquiry  were  really  worth  the  trouble  ; 
and  meanwhile  we  treat  the  phrases  lightly,  and 
remain  secure  of  the  axiom  that  a  cause,  as  such, 
must  come  before  its  effect. 

And  so,  if  the  doubt  be  raised  whether  philo- 
sophy can  tell  common-sense  anything  important 
about  rough  distinction,  we  may  answer  that  in  the 
first  place  we  are  not  compelled  to  admit  any  such 
thoroughgoing  contrast  as  the  question  assumes 
to  exist  between  them.  The  interesting  question 
is,  whether  or  no  our  ordinary  tact  in  the  use  of 
distinctions  can  be  improved  at  all  by  generalising 
and  arranging  our  knowledge  of  the  subject.  The 
existence  of  this  ordinary  tact  need  not  be  denied  ; 
all  that  need  be  denied  is  the  pretension  that  the 
light  of  Nature  suffices  for  all  of  us  on  all  occasions 
where  words  and  distinctions  are  used — that  in  the 
use  of  language  we  are  all  infallible.  Genuine 


38  DISTINCTION 


common-sense  has  a  stronger  case  than  this  to  rely 
on,  namely  the  practical  need  for  acting  sometimes 
in  a  hurry. 

And  in  the  same  way  philosophy  has  a  stronger 
case  when  it  ceases  to  set  itself  up  as  distinct  from 
common-sense  and  above  it.  Any  philosophy 
which  is  not  bent  on  being  merely  destructive,  or 
which  has  even  distantly  recognised  the  aims  and 
the  power  of  the  historical  method,  knows  very 
well  that  common-sense  will  never  show  itself  to 
have  been  wholly  irrational.  What  common-sense 
has  seen  and  believed,  there  have  been  some 
practical  reasons  for  seeing  and  believing  ;  some 
practical  purpose,  however  limited,  has  been 
effected  by  means  of  even  its  most  illusory  notions, 
The  faultiness  of  its  method  is  only  one  side  or 
aspect  of  a  process  which  has  had  at  least  two 
sides,  two  aspects,  each  worthy  to  be  considered  ; 
a  process  in  which  two  conflicting  aims,  two  sets 
of  data,  are  to  be  taken  into  account.  And  the 
business  of  philosophy  is  not  to  content  itself  with 
railing  at  the  unphilosophical,  but  rather  to  learn 
from  common-sense  how  to  correct  the  hard  and 
narrow  judgments  which  at  first  arise  out  of  the 
abstract  method  which  a  philosophical  enquiry 
involves.  Its  best  work  will  be  done  as  common- 
sense  itself  attempting  to  guard,  by  the  method  of 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   COMMON-SENSE        39 


reflection,  against  the  errors  that  belong  to  the 
readiness  and  rapidity  of  its  ordinary  judgments. 
Some  of  the  short  cuts  of  common-sense  are  useful 
in  a  large  majority  of  cases  and  misleading  in  a 
small  minority.  The  interesting  problem  is  how 
to  discriminate  between  the  cases  that  belong  to 
the  one  and  to  the  other  of  these  classes. 

There  is  less  harm  in  conceiving  of  common- 
sense  as  existing  in  various  grades  of  approach  to 
perfection  of  wisdom,  and  of  the  higher  grades  as 
being  able  to  help  the  lower  to  generalise  the  sub- 
ject of  distinction.  This  conception  does  not,  at 
any  rate,  compel  us  to  class  ourselves  as  philo- 
sophers on  the  one  hand,  and  common-sense 
people  on  the  other ;  it  does  not  even  compel  us 
to  separate  people  as  possessing  higher  common- 
sense  and  lower.  Within  each  of  us  there  is  a 
higher  and  a  lower  common-sense,  a  more  and  a 
less  hurried  method  of  forming  judgments,  and 
whatever  we  do  in  the  way  of  improving  our 
shallowest  views  upon  any  subject  only  results  in 
winning  new  ground  for  common-sense  to  occupy, 
not  in  achieving  a  victory  over  common-sense 
itself.  And  in  spite  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the 
contrast  between  what  are  only  higher  and  lower 
grades  of  the  same  quality,  one  thing  at  least  is 
clear — that,  whether  in  the  name  of  philosophy  or 


40  DISTINCTION 

not,  we  are  here  concerned  with  the  war  between 
two  methods  sharply  opposed  in  idea  though  not 
in  their  actual  manifestations :  the  method  which 
loves  a  short  cut,  and  the  method  which  aims  at 
taking  the  utmost  care.  When  this  fact  is  clearly 
seen  we  may  speak  of  '  common-sense '  and  '  philo- 
sophy '  without  much  fear  of  being  misled  by  the 
unreality  of  the  contrast.  We  shall  find  some 
convenience  throughout  this  book  in  speaking  as 
if  the  contrast  were  really  sharp,  but  the  reader  is 
hereby  notified  that  any  such  manner  of  speaking 
is  merely  a  harmless  device  of  expression,  adopted 
for  the  sake  of  avoiding  heavier  phrases. 


CHAPTER   IV 

RIVAL   IDEALS 

ANYONE  who  remembers  what  is  the  kind  of  dis- 
putation he  has  most  frequently  heard,  or  shared 
in,  will  understand  what  is  meant  by  our  saying 
that  questions  of  fact  have  less  vitality,  less  con- 
troversial aptitude,  than  any  other  kind  of  question. 
Of  course  we  need  not  in  saying  this  assume  that 
the  distinction  between  matters  of  fact  and  matters 
of  theory  or  opinion  can  be  drawn  with  exactness. 
That  is  another  example  of  '  unreal '  (or  '  ideal ') 
opposition.  Like  plenty  of  other  distinctions  in 
daily  'use,  it  is  serviceable  only  so  long  as  we  do  not 
take  it  very  strictly.  But  at  any  rate  the  disputes 
which  are  least  easily  settled  lie  at  the  opposite 
end  of  the  scale  from  '  questions  of  fact'  For  we 
commonly  mean  by  a  question  of  fact  a  question 
which  is  open  to  settlement  by  methods  of  verifi- 
cation which  no  one  but  a  desperate  sceptic  can 
refuse  to  accept  as  final.  And  the  desperate 


42  DISTINCTION 


sceptic  is  hardly  to  be  taken  into  account  when  we 
are  trying  to  put  a  workable  meaning  into  the 
phrases  that  everyone  has  to  use. 

'  About  matters  of  taste  there  is  no  disputing.' 
Rather,  disputes  on  all  other  subjects  are  mild  and 
transient  by  comparison.  But  the  proverb  never- 
theless expresses  a  truth — namely,  that  where  a 
dispute  can  be  easily  seen  to  turn  upon  some  un- 
avoidable personal  difference  of  inclination  in  the 
disputants,  they  can  reach  an  agreement  to  differ  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  argument  may  then  be  brought 
at  once  to  its  only  possible  end.  So  far  as  the 
proverb  is  false,  its  falsity  is  chiefly  due  to  the  fact 
that  differences  of  taste  so  often  disguise  their  real 
nature  ;  questions  of  taste  in  food  we  are  accus- 
tomed not  to  argue  ;  questions  of  taste  in  dress,  or 
in  pictures,  or  in  people,  provide  rather  more  de- 
batable matter  ;  and  our  widely  different  views  in 
morals,  religion,  philosophy,  are  seldom  described 
as  matters  of  taste  at  all.  Bad  taste  in  matters 
where  reason  can  be  appealed  to  is  supposed  to 
be  open  to  some  correction  by  the  methods  of 
reason. 

But  we  certainly  need  not  make  any  point  of 
using,  for  the  more  serious  kinds  of  dispute,  so 
undignified  a  name  as  questions  of  taste.  It  will 
serve  all  purposes  equally  well  to  describe  them  as 


RIVAL  IDEALS  43 


cases  of  the  conflict  of  ideals  ;  and  indeed  the 
latter  name  is  really  more  wide-reaching.  The 
notion  of  an  '  ideal '  may  be  fairly  used  to  include 
all  the  less  grossly  material  inclinations,  from  fancy 
in  purely  artistic  matters  up  to  choice  in  the  most 
delicate  shades  of  thought  and  conduct.  Will 
anyone  maintain  that  in  art-criticism,  taste  is 
wholly  irrational  ?  At  any  rate  we  have  each  our 
own  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of  certain  novels,  or 
plays,  or  pictures,  and  where  the  opinions  conflict 
general  grounds  are  often  appealed  to  for  justifica- 
tion of  the  views  we  have  taken.  We  are  not 
always  content,  that  is,  to  regard  our  artistic 
likings  and  aversions  as  mere  '  matters  of  taste,' 
wayward  and  accidental,  but  are  often  tempted  to 
see  that  other  people's  tastes,  when  different  from 
our  own,  are  spoilt  by  some  defect  in  their  educa- 
tion or  powers  ;  which  defect  we  are  more  or  less 
ready  to  characterise  and  explain.  Such  and  such 
a  work  of  art  appeals,  we  say,  to  the  gallery,  or  to 
the  savage  within  us,  or  to  the  spirit  of  sentiment- 
ality, or  whatever  the  damning  phrase  may  be  ; 
and,  on  the  other  side,  he  who  cannot  perceive  its 
excellence  is  said  to  be  deficient  in  sympathy,  or 
in  sense  of  humour,  or  in  some  other  quality  that 
everyone  claims  to  possess.  Indeed,  it  is  easy  to 
generalise  in  this  matter  so  as  to  convince  ourselves 


44  DISTINCTION 


and  irritate  other  people — a  state  of  things  out  of 
which  a  discussion  will  often  arise. 

Throughout  the  class  of  discussions  where  a 
conflict  of  ideals  lies  at  the  root  of  the  difference  of 
opinion,  there  is  always  '  much  to  be  said  on  both 
sides '  ;  which  is  doubtless  precisely  the  reason  why 
this  kind  of  dispute  is  the  longest  lived  and  the 
most  unappeasable.  These  are  the  questions  that 
arise  afresh  in  every  generation,  the  questions 
whose  final  settlement  seems  for  ever  just  to  elude 
our  grasp.  And  even  the  most  peaceable  life  is 
full  of  such  conflicts.  Shall  we  put  our  trust  in 
Conservatism  or  Reform  ?  Should  we  prefer  old 
books  or  new  ?  Ought  fiction  to  edify  or  merely 
to  please  ?  Are  we  to  condemn  '  theoretical '  people 
as  inexperienced  and  unpractical,  or  to  condemn 
the '  practical'  people  as  unenlightened  and  narrow  ? 
Shall  we  philosophise,  or  shall  we  be  content  with 
common-sense  ?  Perhaps  these  few  examples  will 
sufficiently  bring  before  us  the  kind  of  conflicts  ot 
opinion  that  occur  most  often,  that  last  the  longest, 
and  that  stir  up  the  angriest  feeling,  and  drive  the 
deepest  wedge  between  the  opposite  parties. 

But  now  as  to  the  general  characteristics  of 
these  '  ideal '  disputes.  In  the  first  place  it  is 
naturally  the  more  deniable  truths  that  we  com- 
monly find  as  a  matter  of  fact  denied.  The 


RIVAL  IDEALS  45 


extreme  cases  of  certainty  are  not,  as  a  rule,  those 
which  lead  us  to  separate  into  hostile  camps,  but 
rather  the  cases  where  some  vague  faith  of  our  own 
is  attacked  effectively ;  it  is,  therefore,  rather  our 
shaky  beliefs  than  our  perfectly  firm  beliefs  which 
provoke  us  to  enter  upon  their  defence.  And, 
further,  it  is  very  instructive  to  notice  the  part 
which  controversy  plays  in  hardening  these  semi- 
beliefs  into  professed  certainties,  and  the  way  in 
which,  in  the  heat  of  discussion,  we  fortify  our  own 
views  by  making  the  most  of  their  difference  from 
th'ose  of  the  opposite  party.  All  controversy,  as 
such,  implies  a  sharp  division  between  the  opposite 
sides — the  '  ayes  '  and  the  '  noes.'  And  precisely 
those  controversies  which  have  most  vitality  arise 
where  (since  there  really  is  much  to  be  said  on  both 
sides)  the  spirit  of  partisanship  stands  most  in  need 
of  other  support  than  can  be  given  by  pure  reason 
or  regard  for  truth.  For  we  often  cannot  properly 
despise  our  opponent's  opinions  until  we  have  first 
caricatured  them  slightly,  and  our  own  will  never 
be  the  worse  for  being  slightly  idealised.1  We  are 
Conservatives,  for  instance,  not  because  we  are 
stupid  or  timid,  but  because  we  are  wise  enough  to 

1  In  a  chapter  on  '  Rival  Ideals '  I  must  apologise  for  using  the 
word  idealise  in  this  more  popular  sense.  But  there  really  seems  to 
be  no  other  word  to  use — unless  glorify  commends  itself  to  the 
reader. 


46  DISTINCTION 


distrust  all  abstract  system-making  in  politics,  or 
the  fanciful  inexperience  which  imagines  that  the 
millennium  can  be  suddenly  brought  about  by 
revolution  or  by  Acts  of  Parliament.  We  are 
Radicals,  not  because  we  are  rash  and  ignorant,  or 
devoured  by  envy,  but  because  the  Conservative  is 
essentially  a  slug,  and  because  the  course  of  history 
shows  that  the  old  order  is  always  changing,  and 
that  all  progress  involves  a  certain  amount  of  rough 
experimentation  and  the  running  of  certain  risks. 
Our  own  Conservatism,  or  our  own  Radicalism, 
is,  we  assume,  faultless,  or  is  free,  at  least,  from  the 
excesses  which  our  opponents  wrongly  suppose  to 
be  essential  to  it.  And  if  we  look  at  any  of  the 
great  battle-grounds  of  opinion  we  find  the  same 
tendency  to  exaggeration  of  the  contrast,  the  same 
practice  of  idealisation  and  caricature.  If  the 
instances  already  suggested  fail  by  chance  to  remind 
us  of  actual  controversies,  we  may  look  for  ex- 
ample at  the  dispute  that  raged  some  years  ago 
between  Mr.  Harrison  and  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold 
about  '  culture,'  Mr.  Harrison  complaining  in 
effect  that  Mr.  Arnold  had  idealised  the  notion  out 
of  all  resemblance  to  the  actual  facts  of  the  world, 
and  Mr.  Arnold  complaining  that  Mr.  Harri- 
son's notion  of  it  was  little  more  than  an  ignorant 
caricature. 


RIVAL  IDEALS  47 


In  all  those  cases  where  ideals  are  brought  into 
conflict  it  is  the  old  rivalry  between  the  abstract 
and  the  concrete  meaning,  the  ideal  and  the  actual, 
that  chiefly  keeps  the  dispute  alive.  The  prophet 
-or  preacher  of  some  ideal — culture,  for  instance — 
proceeds  smoothly  enough  so  long  as  he  preserves 
the  oracular  tone  which  deals  in  safe  generalities. 
The  praise  of  culture,  like  the  praise  of  goodness, 
may  be  sung  in  a  vague  and  soothing  manner 
which,  just  because  it  recommends  no  definite 
labour  and  holds  up  to  scorn  none  of  our  obvious 
actual  habits,  leaves  us  serenely  convinced  of  edifi- 
cation. The  oracular  form  enables  us  to  interpret 
the  doctrine  exactly  as  we  please  ;  the  preacher 
seems  to  be  talking  to  friends  in  a  friendly  way  and 
using  his  words  in  the '  fluid  and  passing '  l  manner 
that  always  renders  intercourse  easy.  It  is  delight- 
ful to  be  thus  excused  from  the  trouble  of  defining 
exactly  what  we  mean. 

But  no  prophet  or  preacher  can  long  remain 
quite  vague  and  negative,  or  complaisant  to  the 
whole  of  the  world  around  him.  Sooner  or  later  he 
must  run  counter  to  prejudice  ;  being  human,  sooner 

1  See  Literature  and  Dogma,  chap.  i.  Mr.  Arnold  knows  very 
well  how  to  remind  us  that  a  given  word  is  '  by  no  means  a  term  of 
science  or  exact  knowledge,  but  a  term  of  eloquence,  a  term  thrown 
out,  so  to  speak,  at  a  not  fully  grasped  object  of  the  speaker's  con- 
sciousness— a  literary  term,  in  short.' 


48  DISTINCTION 


or  later  he  will  show  his  enmity  to  something  defi- 
nite and  actual.  And  then  it  is  that  doubts  arise 
as  to  the  exact  interpretation  of  his  ideal.  Let  him 
assert,  for  instance,  that  the  pursuit  of  culture  is 
destined  to  '  transform  and  govern '  l  religion,  and 
he  will  find  his  hearers  divided  into  those  who  do 
and  those  who  do  not  proceed  to  enquire  more 
critically  what,  after  all,  is  meant  by  culture- 
Religious  people  are  in  arms  at  once  ;  they  begin 
to  see  some  difference  between  ideal  and  actual 
'  culture.'  If  the  prophet  tells  them  that  culture  is 
'  a  study  of  perfection,' 2  and  that  '  it  moves  by  the 
force  not  merely  or  primarily  of  the  scientific 
passion  for  pure  knowledge,  but  of  the  moral  and 
social  passion  for  doing  good,'  they  are  apt  to  reply 
that  this  would  surely  be  a  better  description  of  reli- 
gion itself  than  of  culture — a  name  which  suggests 
something  much  less  active  and  much  less  wide  in 
its  sympathies  ;  of  culture  as  it  actually  exists  they 
would  say  that  its  moral  and  philanthropic  passion 
is  rather  languid,  and  that  its  attitude  towards  the 
many  is  decidedly  pharisaical.  If  '  culture  '  means 
anything  definite  at  all,  they  begin  to  ask,  who  are 
the  actual  people  who  may  be  said  to  possess  it  ? 
Are  they  or  are  they  not  members  of  the  small  and 
sickly  cliques  who  pride  themselves  upon  their  ex- 

1   Culture  and  Anarchy,  chap.  i.       -  Ibid. 


RIVAL  IDEALS  49 


cellent  taste  in  books  or  china — the  men  whom 
Mr.  Harrison  calls,  in  regard  to  questions  of  manly 
interest,  '  the  poorest  mortals  alive '  ?  Is  it,  for 
instance,  some  armchair  dilettante  who  proposes 
to  '  transform  and  govern '  the  spirit  that  ruled  the 
life  of  Gordon,  or  Father  Damien  ? 

The  distinction  between  culture  and  its  opposite 
is  fairly  typical  of  the  difficulty  so  often  raised  by 
the  sharp  opposition  of  ideals.  The  formation  of 
these  abstractions,  the  analysis  of  concrete  fact  into 
separate  elements  which  are  never  found  quite  de- 
tached and  pure,  is  at  once  the  foundation  of  the 
general  method  of  science  and  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  of  all  the  sources  of  illusion.  When  we 
preach  an  ideal  we  are  apt  to  interpret  our  abstract 
notion  in  some  obvious  concrete  sense  until  the 
statements  we  have  made  are  found  to  be  untenable, 
and  then  to  retire  into  the  mists  of  abstract 
meaning  until  the  attack  blows  over.  This  may 
be  illustrated  in  the  case  we  are  here  considering. 
In  spite  of  the  claim  that  the  aim  at  culture  is  simply 
the  general  aim  at  perfection,  there  are  certainly 
passages  in  Mr.  Arnold's  account  of  what  culture 
is  which  go  far  to  justify  his  opponents'  idea  of  its 
actual  meaning.  For  instance,  on  one  occasion  l 
he  finds  that  an  American  writer,  fired  by  the 
1  Ibid.,  chap.  ii. 

E 


50  DISTINCTION 


belief  that  industrialism,  or  material  progress,  is 
the  chief  means  of  '  making  reason  and  the  will  of 
God  prevail,'  proposes  to  set  up  the  class  of  indus- 
trialists as  typical  men  of  culture.  And  this,  says 
Mr.  Arnold,  'is  undoubtedly  specious  ;  but  I 
must  remark  that  the  culture  of  which  I  talked  was 
an  endeavour  to  come  at  reason  and  the  will  of 
God  by  means  of  reading,  observing,  and  thinking  ; 
and  that  whoever  calls  anything  else  culture  may 
indeed  call  it  so  if  he  likes,  but  then  he  talks  of 
something  quite  different  from  what  I  talked  of.' 

Reading,  observing,  thinking !  That  begins 
to  be  a  more  definite  account  of  the  actual  method 
of  culture  ;  but  why,  then,  should  Mr.  Harrison  be 
blamed  for  supposing  'culture'  rather  a  narrow 
conception  of  the  aim  at  a  perfect  life?  Is  the 
life  of  a  reader  or  thinker,  in  truth,  '  the  ideal  of 
a  human  perfection  complete  on  all  sides '  ?  Are 
not  books,  too,  a  form  of  '  machinery  '  ?  Or,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  are  students  and  literary  people 
specially  the  class  that  possess  '  a  finely-tempered 
nature '  ? 

The  more  we  consider  the  actual  topics  of  dis- 
cussion, the  more  we  shall  find  that,  while  the  conflict 
of  ideals  is  what  gives  to  such  topics  their  chief 
vitality,  the  doubt  how  to  apply  abstract  notions  in 
concrete  cases  is  what  chiefly  keeps  the  ideals  in 


RIVAL  IDEALS 


conflict.    The  life  of  controversy  depends  partly  on 
the  difficulty  of   verification,  and   in  these  vague 
and  wordy  discussions  the  difficulty  of  verification 
is  at  its  highest.     It  depends  also  partly  on  the 
extent  to  which  matters  of  taste  can  disguise  them- 
selves as  matters  of  more  general  import,  and  the 
vaguer  the  discussion,  the  easier  is  this  disguise. 
But  it  depends  most  of  all  upon  the  power  which 
vagueness  of  language  gives  us  of  putting  a  better 
or  worse  construction  on  what  ourselves  and  our 
opponents    really    mean.      The   special    form   the 
discussion  takes  is  not,  indeed,  always  so  simple 
and  clear  as  in  the  example  we  have  just  been 
noticing.     The  point  at  issue  is  not  always  on  the 
surface,  the  merits  and  demerits  of  this  or  that 
quality  or  line  of  conduct.      Quite  as   often  the 
dispute  pretends  to  be  aimed  throughout  merely  at 
the  meaning  of  a  word  or  at  the  drawing  of  some 
fine  distinction  :  what  is  genius  ?  for  example  ;  or 
how  to  distinguish  correctly    between  fancy   and 
imagination,  or  between  legitimate  speculation  and 
gambling ;  whether  right  is  only  might  in  the  end, 
and  similar  forms  of  apparently  verbal  problems. 
Yet  the  real  nature  of  such  discussions  may  easily 
be  seen  to  be  ethical  or  ideal  ;  what  gives  them 
their  chief  importance  and  interest  is  the .  relative 
attractiveness  or  repulsiveness  of  the  notions,  the 

E  2 


52  DISTINCTION 


implication  of  comparative  praise  or  contempt  that 
underlies  the  names.  Genius,  whatever  it  may  be, 
is  something  we  revere  wherever  we  think  we  find 
it ;  the  distinction  between  fancy  and  imagination 
is  motived  by  the  wish  to  praise  the  one  at  the 
expense  of  the  other ; l  while  in  the  case  of 
speculation  and  gambling,  or  right  and  might, 
the  ethical  purpose  of  the  contrast  is  still  more 
plain  to  see.  Such  distinctions  are  thinly  disguised 
forms  of  the  conflict  between  opposed  ideals. 

It  is  sometimes  hinted  by  practical  men  that 
all  philosophy  is  mere  word-spinning,  mere  dis- 
puting about  the  meaning  of  words.  And  some 
philosophers2  themselves  would  perhaps  have 
admitted  the  charge,  in  a  sense  of  their  own. 
Like  most  other  philosophical  opinions,  it  may 
correspond  to  much  or  little  insight ;  at  any  rate, 
it  need  not  mean  simply  what  the  unphilosophical 
intend  by  it,  that  philosophy  is  altogether  trivial. 
In  the  light  of  the  common  examples  just  brought 
forward  it  is  plain  that  disputes  about  words  may 
have  a  practical  justification  as  referring,  though 

1  '  Such  distinctions,'  says  Mr.   Ruskin,  in  disparaging  the  im- 
portance of    this   particular   discussion,    'are   scarcely  more  than 
varieties  of  courtesy  or  dignity  in  the  use  of  words. '     But  if  they 
be  even  so  much  as  this  it  is  enough  for  our  purpose. 

2  E.g.   Condillac,  who  said  that  zine  science  bien  traitee  ifest 

langue  bienfaite. 


RIVAL  IDEALS  53 


obscurely,  to  ideals  of  conduct  or  general  choice. 
And  not  only  is  it  impossible  to  draw  a  sharp  line 
between  the  class  of  controversies  we  have  been 
discussing  and  those  which  may  be  called  in  the 
technical  sense  philosophical,  but  the  latter  consti- 
tute rather  the  extreme  case  of  what  is  essential 
to  the  former.  '  Philosophical '  discussion  is  less 
matter-of-fact  than  any  other,  and  is  less  easily 
brought  to  an  end  ;  it  is  most  of  all  affected  by  the 
vacillation  between  ideal  and  actual  meanings ; 
and,  equally  with  the  great  politicians  and  divines, 
the  great  philosophers  are  apt  to  exaggerate  the 
difference  between  rival  systems  by  means  of 
idealisation  and  caricature.  It  is  so  easy  to  put  either 
a  good  or  a  bad  construction  upon  any  formal 
doctrines ;  so  difficult  to  avoid  this  sort  of  un- 
fairness. 

And  further,  the  conflict  of  ideals  is  plainly  ex- 
emplified in  all  the  chief  philosophical  debating- 
grounds,  however  technical  the  language  in  which 
the  discussions  are  carried  on.  To  a  great  extent 
philosophy  has  always  been  concerned  with  ethics  ; 
that  is  to  say,  with  the  attempt  to  harmonise  con- 
flicting ideals  of  conduct  :  and  even  in  its  least 
directly  practical  questions,  such  as  the  ever- 
recurring  puzzles  about  the  nature  of  truth  or 
certainty,  or  about  the  ultimate  foundation  of 


54  DISTINCTION 


things  in  general,  the  problem  still  is  to  harmonise 
opposed  ideals,  though  here  they  are  rather 
ideals  of  intellect  than  of  character.  For  instance, 
one  of  the  great  dividing  forces  in  philosophy  at  all 
times  has  been  the  rivalry  between  two  opposite 
methods  of  general  explanation — that  which 
explains  small  things  by  great  ones,  the  part  by  the 
whole,  the  many  by  the  one  (e.g.  all  earthly  facts  as 
related  to  their  one  cause  and  substance)  ;  and  that 
which  explains  great  things  by  small  ones,  the 
the  whole  by  its  parts,  the  one  by  the  many  (e.g. 
the  system  of  Nature  as  a  '  concourse  of  atoms '). 
And  behind  all  lesser  intellectual  differences  lies 
that  between  the  temper  which  easily  believes  in 
order  to  understand,  and  the  temper  for  which 
belief  without  understanding  is  hardly  possible. 

We  must  look  more  closely  at  one  especially  of 
these  deeper  sources  of  endless  conflict  in  a  later 
chapter.1  At  present  enough  has  been  said,  I 
hope,  to  help  us  further  in  seeing  why  we  should 
raise  our  general  questions  as  to  distinction  and 
definition.  Keeping  in  mind  the  few  examples 
already  given,  we  can  now  begin  to  discuss  these 
theoretical  questions  with  some  insight  into  the 
reasons  why  the  enquiry  is  thought  to  be  worth 
while. 

1  Page  202. 


RIVAL  IDEALS  55 


It  appears,  then,  that  in  all  the  more  lively  and 
lasting  disputes  some  ideal,  some  '  notion,'  is  con- 
trasted either  with  one,  or  with  several,  others.  To 
a  great  extent  the  vitality  of  discussion  in  general 
depends  upon  the  absence  of  sharp  definition,  sharp 
distinction  ;  or,  rather,  upon  the  absence  of  that 
kind  of  sharp  distinction  which  is  applicable,  not 
only  to  the  notions  themselves,  but  to  the  actual 
facts  to  which  they  pretend  to  refer.  The  less 
definite  the  words  which  we  are  forced  to  use  in 
describing  our  aims  or  beliefs,  the  more  the  actual 
difference  between  the  opposed  aims  or  beliefs  lies 
open  to  exaggeration  by  means  of  idealisation  and 
caricature.  For  instance,  were  the  line  between 
'  culture  '  and  its  opposites  firmly  drawn,  were  the 
notion  of  culture  marked  out  by  a  definition  un- 
mistakably applicable  in  every  actual  case,  the  fire  of 
the  dispute  would  be  deprived  of  its  fuel,  since  then 
we  should  no  longer  be  able  to  connect  the  name 
'  cultured '  only  with  those  we  admire  or  despise  ; 
the  cultured  would  then  take  their  place  as  a  mixed 
company,  like  peers,  or  women,  or  Frenchmen,  or 
any  other  definite  class.  I  do  not,  of  course,  deny 
that  rash  general  assertions  are  sometimes  made 
about  peers,  or  women,  or  Frenchmen,  but  I  hope 
the  reader  will  agree  that  such  assertions  are 


56  DISTINCTION 


mostly  to  be  explained  as  carelessly  expressed^ 
their  real  reference  being  only  indirectly  to  the 
individuals,  and  directly  to  vague  ideals  which  are 
very  obscurely  suggested — for  example,  it  is  '  Gallic 
lightness '  that  we  admire  or  detest,  rather  than 
every  actual  Frenchman  ;  and  that  where  no  such 
explanation  can  be  found,  all  sensible  people  are 
agreed  that  the  assertion  is  foolish.  Surely  no 
definite  class  of  people  resemble  each  other  so 
closely  that  all  the  members  exemplify  exactly  any 
one  ideal  ?  Surely  not  all  actual  peers,  or  women, 
or  Frenchmen,  are  equally  attractive  or  repulsive  ? 
At  least,  if  anyone  really  finds  them  so,  we  must 
leave  him  out  of  account. 

The  question  is  not  an  easy  one,  How  far  it  is 
necessary  to  apply  abstract  notions  in  actual  cases 
in  order  to  give  them  a  definite  meaning.  By 
the  light  of  Nature  we  are  very  likely  to  misunder- 
stand it,  and  if  we  rely  on  elementary  logic  we  are 
perfectly  certain  to  do  so.  For  the  '  laws  of 
thought,'  though  ideally  true,  are  false  in  every 
case  as  applied  to  actual  things.1  Yet  excessive 
belief  in  the  'laws  of  thought'  is  not  wholly  con- 
fined to  beginners  in  logic,  but  all  higher  logic, 
whether  intuitive  or  elaborate,  demands  a  constant 
1  See  p.  71. 


RIVAL  IDEALS  57 


watchfulness  against  the  early  superstition.  This 
matter  will,  therefore,  require  a  careful  discussion, 
the  outcome  of  which,  I  hope,  will  be  a  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  rights  of  the  demand  for  an 
applicable  definition. 


CHAPTER   V 

UNREALITY 

OUR  frequent  use  of  the  word  '  unreal '  will  require, 
sooner  or  later,  some  explanation  and  apology,  and 
the  point  now  reached  appears  to  be  a  good  one 
for  the  purpose.  The  reader  can  hardly  fail  to  see 
by  this  time  how  much  is  made  to  turn  upon  the 
distinction  between  real  and  unreal  in  our  whole 
view  of  the  subject ;  and  since  this  distinction  has 
always  been  one  of  the  quicksands  of  philosophy, 
some  care  will  have  to  be  exercised  in  picking 
our  way  across  it. 

The  best !  short  account  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  word  '  unreal '  is  here  throughout  employed,  is 
that  it  is  expressly  intended  not  to  imply  an  answer 
to  the  metaphysical  question.  The  metaphysical 
question  about  reality  is  how  to  distinguish  real  (or 
absolute)  reality2  from  the  reality  which  is  only 

1  Or  best  available  at  the  present  stage  of  our  discussion.    After 
p.  1 80  we  can  call  it  simply  a  Reference-name. 

2  The  phrase  '  real  reality '  is  of  course  open  to  verbal  criticism ; 


UNREALITY  59 


apparent  (or  relative)  ;  and  whatever  views  I  may 
hold  on  this  extremely  difficult  subject,  either 
knowingly  or  otherwise,  I  do  not  wish  to  inflict 
them  on  the  reader.  Everyone  is  driven,  at  times, 
to  question  the  reality  of  things  that  seem  most 
real  to  someone  else.  Such  questions  are  more 
easy  to  raise  than  to  answer  finally.  No  doubt 
the  reader  has  his  own  opinions  as  to  which  of  our 
so-called  realities  most  truly  deserve  the  name ; 
and  if  his  view  should  differ  from  mine,  who  is  to 
judge  between  us,  in  the  end  ?  Not  I,  at  any 
rate ;  nor  do  I  see  how  I  could  accept  his  view,  in 
the  very  act  of  disputing  it.  With  the  best  inten- 
tions, one  cannot  be  both  judge  and  party  in  a  suit. 
And  so  it  is  only  admitted  reality  that  we  are 
here  to  take  into  account ;  we  shall  use  the  terms 
real  and  unreal  only  so  far  as  the  reader  and  I 
can  agree  on  their  application.  In  practical  life 
we  are  all  in  the  habit  of  admitting,  doubting,  dis- 
puting, denying,  the  '  reality  '  of  the  things  that  we 
and  our  neighbours  talk  about  ;  and  though  we  do 
not  all  agree  to  call  the  same  things  real — for 

but  it  need  neither  mislead  nor  offend  anyone.  It  is  here  used  only 
to  express  the  fact  that  the  metaphysician,  as  such,  is  inclined  to 
question  the  reality  of  '  things '  which  his  less  metaphysical  neigh- 
bours accept  as  real.  His  function  is  to  distinguish  (so-called) 
realities  as  real  and  unreal.  I  do  not  see  any  better  short  way  of 
expressing  the  same  meaning. 


60  DISTINCTION 


instance,  grown-up  people  think  the  troubles  of 
childhood  often  only  fancied — yet  a  certain  amount 
of  agreement  is  reached  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Those 
engaged  in  physical  science  agree  on  the  whole  as 
to  what  are  realities  of  observation,  and  unscientific 
opinion  is  much  more  easily  satisfied.  There  are 
people  who  agree  with  each  other  that  ghosts  are 
real. 

For  our  purposes,  the  most  interesting  fact 
about  such  agreement  in  general  is  that  it  often 
makes  no  pretence  of  being  more  than  provisional. 
Just  as  we  may  admit  the  truth  of  some  doubtful 
assertion  '  for  the  sake  of  argument,'  so  we  often 
admit,  for  a  passing  purpose,  the  reality  of  some- 
thing which  on  other  occasions  we  should  be  dis- 
posed to  call  unreal.  For  instance,  future  and 
problematical  occurrences  are  often  named  as  sub- 
stantives, in  order  that  we  may  speak  of  them 
as  if  they  were  present  or  actual.  The  symbols 
used  in  mathematics  afford  perhaps  as  simple  an 
instance  of  this  as  can  be  found.  When  we  say 
that  2  +  2=4,  we  are  only  expressing  concisely  the 
fact,  that  z/"we  take  two  units  of  anything,  and  add 
two  more  units  to  them,  we  shall  have  the  same 
amount  as  if  we  had  taken  four  units  at  once. 
Similarly,  a  fraction,  or  a  set  of  figures  and  signs  in 
a  bracket,  is  the  name  of  the  result  of  a  process 


UNREALITY  61 


which  may,  or  may  not,  be  actually  performed. 
We  may  speak  of  \/ — I,  for  example,  without  ever 
performing  the  process  of  finding  the  root,  or  we 
may  use  names  like  quotient,  sum,  product,  &c., 
though  the  actual  amounts  remain  for  ever  un- 
known. As  results  of  future  processes,  they  are  at 
present  admittedly  non-existent.  A  rather  less 
simple  instance  of  the  same  thing  may  be  found  in 
such  a  name  as  yearly  income.  To  speak  of  our 
current  yearly  income  in  the  present  tense,  as 
something  actual,  requires  a  tacit  understanding 
that  (for  a  passing  purpose,  at  least)  doubts  as  to 
the  future  continuance  of  it  shall  not  be  raised. 
There  is  a  hypothetical  element  in  the  conception, 
which  we  recognise  in  theory,  and  yet  choose  in 
practice  to  leave  occasionally  out  of  sight.  A  still 
less  simple  instance  would  be  such  a  name  as  the 
trough  of  a  cyclone  ;  this  is  something,  the  existence 
of  which  depends  on  the  relative  movement  of  a 
cyclone — itself  a  shifting  and  relative  state  of 
things — and  a  (real  or  imaginary)  observer.  The 
'  trough '  is  an  imaginary  line  drawn  through  the 
lowest  point  of  the  atmospheric  pressure,  at  right 
angles  to  the  direction  in  which  the  cyclone  as  a 
whole  (or  else  its  observer)  is  moving.  And  the 
conception  is  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
the  forward  movement  is  highly  irregular  and 


6a  DISTINCTION 


difficult  to  foresee,  and  that  the  cyclone  itself  may 
more  or  less  rapidly  cease  to  exist  ;  so  that  even 
where  the  movement  has  been  in  one  direction  for, 
say,  the  last  twenty-four  hours,  we  have  no  gua- 
rantee that  at  the  present  moment  the  direction  is 
still  the  same  ;  and  consequently  no  guarantee  that 
we  ever  know  where  the  '  trough  '  is,  as  a  present 
existence.  And  there  may  not  be,  just  now,  a 
trough  at  all,  for  the  movement  may  have  ceased  ; 
nor,  in  fact,  any  cyclone  to  have  a  trough,  for  the 
atmospheric  depression  may  have  filled  up  since 
our  last  observation  was  taken.  There  is  here 
hypothesis  behind  hypothesis,  and  when  we  treat 
the  '  trough '  as  something  that  can  be  spoken 
about,  we  have  to  shut  our  eyes  to  its  highly 
hypothetical  character.  And  the  same  is  true  of 
the  '  things '  denoted  by  names  like  defect  or  minus 
quantity,  where  even  the  total  from  which  the  sub- 
traction is  not  yet  actually  made  may  never  be 
actually  in  existence.  Here,  also,  it  is  the  hypo- 
thetical character  of  what  is  named  that  leads  us 
to  class  the  '  thing '  as  unreal,  as  potential  rather 
than  actual. 

The  question  is  still  sometimes  debated  whether 
'  attributes  ' — for  example,  length  or  hardness — are 
anything  '  real.'  We  have  decided  '  that  we  will 

1  Page  59. 


UNREALITY  63 

not  try  to  answer  that  question  as  it  stands.     But 
no  one,  I  think,  denies  that  language,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  assumes  the  reality  of  attributes,  if  only 
for  the  passing  purpose  of  predicating  about  them. 
Whenever  we  make  a  name  of  an  attribute  into  a 
substantive,  so  as  to  use  it  as  a  subject  term — e.g. 
'  Familiarity  breeds  contempt ' — we  speak  for  the 
moment  of  that  attribute  as  if  it  were  something 
real.     At  the  same  time,  common-sense  is  quite 
inclined  to  recognise  that  attributes  are  compara- 
tively fleeting  and  dependent  things,  less  durable, 
that  is  to  say,  or  less  substantial  somehow,  than  the 
things   or   persons   to   which   or    to   whom   they 
belong.     How  far,  indeed,  common-sense  will  go 
in  the  direction  of  admitting  the  unsubstantiality 
of  what  commonly  passes  for  '  things '  it  is  impos- 
sible to  predict ;  for  although  the  habit  of  common- 
sense   is    to  take    things    as    real   without   much 
enquiry,  yet  no  very  deep  philosophy  is  needed  in 
order  to  see  that  the  general  distinction  between 
things  and  states  of  things  is  unsatisfactory,  and 
that  our  names  for  things  are  often  only  names  for 
the  way  something  else  happens  to  affect  us.     A 
name  like  the  horizon  will  serve  to  illustrate  the 
latter  case  ;  when  we  speak  of  an  object  being '  on 
the  horizon,'  we  know  very  well  that  if  we  could 
suddenly  be  transported  to  the  place  where  that 


64  DISTINCTION 


object  is,  the  '  horizon '  would  be  found  elsewhere  ; 
and  the  same  of  a  rainbow,  or  the  path  of  light 
made  by  the  moon  on  the  sea.  Of  the  difficulty 
of  distinguishing  things  from  states  of  things, 
examples  are  very  numerous  :  is  a  headache  a 
thing,  or  is  it  only  a  state  of  the  head  ?  Is  an 
echo  a  thing ;  or  a  flame  ;  or  the  human  soul ;  or 
the  human  bodyt  Is  snow  a  thing,  or  is  it  only  an 
accidental  state  of  water  ?  And  is  water,  for  that 
matter,  anything  more  than  an  imperfectly  stable 
condition  of  its  two  component  gases  ?  We  very 
soon  find  that,  though  it  is  possible  to  distinguish 
between  any  given  thing  (material  or  immaterial) 
and  its  own  accidental  attributes,  it  is  impossible  to 
distinguish  between  things  and  attributes  at  large  ; 
for  attributes  themselves  have  attributes,1  and  in 
strictness  even  the  most  material  things  that  come 
within  our  experience  are  only  accidental  states  of 
something  else,  on  which  they  are  therefore  de- 
pendent. Just  as  hardness  or  whiteness  only  exist 
where  things  are  hard  or  white,  so  rocks  and 
snow  only  exist  where  matter  has  taken  those 
forms.  Pure  formless  matter  we  never  find,  but 
only  some  perishing  aspect  This  or  that  fact  of 
experience  may  be  regarded  either  as  a  thing,  or  as 

1  For  instance,  attributes  like  health,  strength,  wisdom,  &c., 
may  have  the  attribute  desirability. 


UNREALITY  65 


a  state  of  something  else,  according  as  we  wish  to 
speak  of  its  variations,  or  of  that  nearest  com- 
parative constant  of  which  itself  is  a  passing  form. 
I  here  expressly,  avoid  trying  to  state  the  case 
for  those  who  quarrel  with  common-sense  on  this 
subject  to  the  greatest  possible  extent.  From  our 
point  of  view  they  may  or  may  not  be  right.  It 
is  quite  possible,  for  instance,  that  ideals  or 
'  universals '  are  the  most  real  of  all  realities,  or 
that  in  general  that  which  seems  most  real  to 
common-sense  has  least  of  true  reality.  But  even 
supposing  that  is  the  case,  the  value  of  the  dis- 
tinction '  real  unreal '  on  a  lower  and  less  meta- 
physical level  remains.  On  that  everyday  level 
there  seem  to  be  two  chief  questions  on  which  the 
decision  whether  a  thing  shall  be  regarded  as  real 
is  generally  held  to  turn — the  question  as  to  the 
durability  or  permanence  of  the  '  thing,'  and  the 
question  as  to  its  independence.  Both  of  these 
have  to  be  rather  broadly  and  loosely  decided  in 
order  to  use  them  at  all,  for,  of  course,  in  perfect 
strictness  nothing  within  our  experience  is  either 
everlasting  or  quite  independent  of  other  things. 
But  of  the  two,  the  one  that  seems  most  often  to 
be  taken  as  a  satisfactory  reason  for  admitting 
reality  is  independence — at  least  in  the  form  of 
individuality. 


66  DISTINCTION 


So  far  as  we  can  speak  of  common-sense  as  if 
it  were  an  organ  with  only  one  opinion,  I  think  we 
may  say  that  the  inmost  belief  of  common-sense 
about  reality  is  that  the  real  is  the  producible  ;  by 
which  I  mean  only,  that  where  the  question  arises 
whether  this  or  that  is  real,  we  naturally  ask 
whether  a  concrete  instance  of  it  can  anyhow  be 
given.  Facts  are  the  test  to  which  we  try  to  make 
appeal.  That,  for  example,  is  the  line  that  the 
controversial  critic  often  takes  when  he  wants  to 
suggest  that  an  assertor  is  talking  vaguely,  or 
using  general  names  without  enquiring  what  are 
the  things  to  which  they  in  fact  apply.  And  hence 
the  so  frequent  recurrence  of  the  doubt  whether 
attributes  are  real ;  even  the  most  perceptible  attri- 
butes of  things  have  this  disadvantage  as  compared 
with  the  things  they  belong  to,  that  they  cannot  be 
produced  as  pure  concrete  examples.  If  we  talk 
about  sticks  or  stones,  the  general  name  can  have 
its  meaning  not  only  defined  in  words  but  illus- 
trated in  actual  cases  ;  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  talk 
of  the  length  or  the  hardness  of  sticks  and  stones, 
we  cannot  produce  an  example  of  pure  length  or 
pure  hardness,  but  only  something  which  is  more 
or  less  long  or  hard,  something,  therefore,  in  which 
length  and  shortness,  or  hardness  and  softness,  are 
combined  in  certain  proportions.  And  though  we 


UNREALITY  67 


may  recognise  the  existence  of  some  attributes — 
e.g.  whiteness  and  blackness — which  can  be  found 
apparently  unmixed  with  their  own  contradictories, 
yet  even  these  are  not  producible  by  themselves. 
The  examples  produced  are  never  examples  of 
whiteness  or  blackness  existing  independently  of 
something  which  can  be  known  through  other 
qualities  also ;  an  attribute  is  always  only  one 
aspect  among  many  that  belong  to  this  or  that 
producible  thing.  As  soon,  for  instance,  as  we 
define  '  culture '  in  any  sense  narrow  enough  to 
apply  with  exactness,  the  actual  men  of  culture  will 
be  found  to  possess  other  qualities,  some  attractive 
and  some  repulsive,  in  very  various  degrees. 

One  way  to  obtain  a  general  view  of  the 
extent  of  the  practice  of  naming  things  which  are 
confessedly  unreal  is  to  notice  broadly  the  manner 
in  which  substantives  are  formed  from  words  that 
are  other  than  substantival.1  Everyone  knows 
that  the  (substantival)  names  of  attributes — length 
or  hardness,  for  instance — are  mostly  formed  from 
adjectives,  and  that  we  may  turn  the  infinitive 
mood  of  a  verb  into  a  substantive  at  any  moment 
for  a  passing  purpose — as  in  '  to  err  is  human  '  or 
*  speaking  makes  a  ready  man  ' ;  but  the  ease  with 
which  almost  any  word  may  be  pressed  into 
1  See  Appendix,  p.  257. 

F2 


68  DISTINCTION 


service  as  a  subject  term,  thus  becoming  for  a  time 
at  least  a  true  substantive — the  name  of  something 
which  is  regarded  as  substantial — is  perhaps  not 
sufficiently  recognised  in  the  books  on  logic. 
Thus,  nouns  may  be  formed  from  adverbs,  as  an 
alibi  or  a  tandem  ;  from  prepositions,  as  a  denizen 
(dans]  ;  from  noun  and  preposition  together,  as 
diapason,  parterre,  ephemera,  sinecure  ;  from  cases 
of  other  nouns,  as  folio,  specie,  rebus,  omnibus  ;  from 
a  single  word  of  a  sentence,  as  creed,  requiem, 
quorum,  dirge.  Some  of  these  things  (e.g.  a  folio, 
a  denizen,  an  omnibus)  are  as  material  as  anything 
can  be,  and  are  apparently  named  in  much  the 
same  way  as  when  we  form  an  ordinary  substantive 
from  an  adjective.1  The  dans  of  denizen  seems  as 
adjectival  as  native  or  immigrant,  the  ablative  folio 
as  adjectival  as  manuscript,  the  dative  omnibus  as 
adjectival  as  a  sociable  or  a  sulky.  And  though  a 
tandem  is  immaterial,  being  neither  the  cart  nor  the 
horses,  but  the  way  the  horses  are  harnessed,  this 
name  is  perhaps  rather  hard  to  distinguish  from 
the  adjectival  name  of  an  attribute  ;  and  the  same 
is  true  of  a  sinecure,  or,  again,  of  a  sine  qua  non. 

But  when  we  speak  of  proving  an  alibi,  the 
substantive,  '  alibi/  is  an  abbreviation  for  '  the  fact 
that  he  was  elsewhere.'  An  alibi  can  hardly  be 

1  As  to  the  extent  of  these  cases,  see  p.  174. 


UNREALITY  69 


regarded  as  itself  something  substantial,  nor  yet  as 
an  attribute.  So  when  we  speak  of  forming  a 
quorum,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  is  the  nature  of 
that  which  is  formed  ;  it  is  rather  an  event  than 
an  attribute,  and  it  is  no  more  material  than  (e.g.} 
a  majority  or  an  average.  The  name  is  an  abbre- 
viation for  a  fact  that  would  otherwise  take  a 
sentence  to  express. 

These  instances  help  us  to  see  that  we  should 
hesitate  to  assume  offhand  that  one  of  the  necessary 
functions  of  every  name  is  to  denote  something  real. 
It  is  here  suggested  that  the  notion  that  names  are 
often  abbreviated  hypothetical  sentences  may  help 
us  to  smooth  away  much  of  the  difficulty  that  is 
traceable  to  that  faulty  assumption.  Wherever 
the  name  of  a  quality  is  made  into  a  subject  term 
(e.g.  'familiarity  breeds  contempt')  the  meaning 
may  be  as  clearly  expressed  in  a  sentence  begin- 
ning with  '  if/  or  '  when,'  or  '  in  proportion  as,'  or 
some  other  conditional  phrase  :  when  we  say  that 
'  familiarity  breeds  contempt '  we  generally  mean 
that  if  (or  when,  or  in  proportion  as)  people  or 
things  become  familiar  to  us  we  lose  some  of  the 
dread  or  reverence  we  felt  when  they  were  strange. 

Unreal  distinctness,  then,  in  our  sense  of  the 
term,  is  only  unreal  for  those  who  find  it  so — for 


70  DISTINCTION 


those  who  in  trying  to  interpret  a  name  are  struck 
with  the  artificial  hardness  of  the  line  between  that 
name  and  its  contradictory,  in  contrast  with  the 
apparent  continuity  of  Nature.  And  nowhere  do  I 
mean  by  the  epithet '  real '  (or  '  unreal ')  any  higher 
or  more  metaphysical  kind  of  reality  than  this.  The 
distinction  is  used,  and  is  useful,  even  where  it  is 
known  to  be  thus  restricted  ;  and,  in  fact,  until  the 
most  real  reality  is  satisfactorily  discovered  I  see 
no  better  way  of  interpreting  the  distinction.  Till 
that  time  comes,  I  suppose,  our  views  of  the  facts 
of  Nature  will  seem  to  all  of  us  more  realistic  than 
the  names  we  use  in  describing  them,  and  distinct- 
ness will  seem  artificial  wherever  the  difference, 
in  nature,  seems  to  be  one  of  degree. 


CHAPTER   VI 

IS   NATURE  CONTINUOUS   THROUGHOUT  ? 

IF  it  be  at  all  violent  to  say,  as  we  said  at  the  end 
of  Chapter  IV.,  that  the  '  laws  of  thought/ l  are 
false  in  every  case  as  applied  to  actual  things,  yet 
it  is  rather  a  stale  remark  than  a  violent  one  that 
Nature  is  continuous  throughout.  And  the  former 
truth  certainly  follows  from  the  latter.  If  Nature 
is  continuous  throughout,  then  A  and  non-A  are 
always  (really)  one ;  and  however  sharply  they 
may  be  distinguished  in  idea,  still  there  is  (really) 
an  intermediate  region  between  them. 

1  The  form  in  which  the  '  laws  of  thought '  are  usually  given  is  as 
follows  : — 

Law  of  identity  :  A  is  A. 

Law  of  contradiction  :  A  is  not  non-A. 

Law  of  excluded  middle  :  A  is  either  B  or  non-B. 

(i.e.  S  is  either  A  or  non-A.) 

These  laws  are  true  of  the  concepts  A  and  non-A ;  but,  for 
application  to  actual  cases,  they  need  correction.  For  (i)  Any 
actual  A  has  been  non-A  and  will  be  non-A  again  ;  it  has  there- 
fore some  non-A  in  it  ;  (2)  Any  actual  A  may  deserve  to  be 
called  non-A  ;  and  (3)  Between  the  actual  A's  and  non-A's  there 
is  always  a  middle  region,  or  borderland. 


72  DISTINCTION 


The  question  as  to  the  continuity  of  Nature  is 
perhaps  best  treated  as  a  question  of  what  can  be 
conceived.  On  looking  closely  we  find  that  it  is 
inconceivable  l  that  Nature  can  be  other  than  con- 
tinuous. For  in  the  first  place  there  is  the  same 
difficulty  in  accepting  an  apparently  sharp  distinc- 
tion for  really  sharp  as  in  accepting  the  notion  of 
creation  ex  nihilo.  In  order  that  A  shall  be  really 
distinct  from  non-A  there  must  be  no  gradualness 
in  the  process  of  creation  of  A  no  A,  unfinished, 
no  germ  of  A,  no  raw  material  out  of  which  A  is 
pieced  together.  There  must,  therefore,  be  no  time 
occupied  by  the  process,  since  time  is  infinitely 
divisible  ;  nor  must  the  finished  A  occupy  any 
space,  for  a  similar  reason.  And  we  cannot  escape 
the  question  how  any  actual  thing  called  A  came 
into  its  present  form  of  existence  ;  any  actual  thing 
called  A  must  be  either  something  permanent  or 
something  transient.  But  what  things  in  Nature 
are  really  permanent  when  we  come  to  close 
quarters  with  the  question  ?  That  vague  ideal 
entity  '  matter '  may  be  indestructible,  but  no  actual 
(producible 2)  form  of  it  is  so ;  and  in  the  end  we 
seem  driven  to  admit  that  the  only  true  '  substance  ' 
is  something  so  indeterminate  that  nothing  de- 
scriptive can  be  said  of  it.  It  'exists'  as  the 
1  See  Appendix,  p.  259.  2  See  p.  66. 


IS  NATURE  CONTINUOUS   THROUGHOUT?    73 

subject  of  change,  and  is  only  to  be  caught  in  the 
act  of  changing.  Then  A,  if  it  be  actual,  de- 
scribable,  producible,  verifiable,  must  be  transient, 
arising  out  of  non-A  and  passing  into  it  again.  So 
that  A  and  non-A  are  each  of  them  only  passing 
forms  of  the  other. 

In  this  way,  therefore,  the  picture  we  get  of 
distinctions  in  general  is  that  they  are  really  fluid, 
but  artificially  hard  ;  that  the  apparent  absence  of 
a  borderland  between  (actual)  A  and  non-A  is  a 
result  of  our  incomplete  powers  of  vision  wherever 
it  is  not  a  result  of  deliberately  shutting  our  eyes 
to  some  of  the  facts.  Either  the  transition  is  too 
quick  for  our  clumsy  observation,  or  in  some  way 
the  process  is  hidden  from  us  at  present,  and  is 
therefore  liable  to  become  manifest  whenever  our 
observing  power,  or  our  insight  into  past  history  or 
remote  places,  shall  become  sufficiently  improved. 
If  experimental  confirmation  of  this  view  is 
wanted,  we  have  it  everywhere  along  the  line  of 
the  progress  of  knowledge.  Every  addition  to  our 
knowledge  of  Nature  is  an  addition  to  our  know- 
ledge of  some  process — an  intermediate  step  where 
formerly  a  gap  existed  ;  and  every  now  and  then 
some  long-received  distinction  is  thus  found  to 
need  revision.  The  history  of  the  growth  of  know- 
ledge is  a  history  of  the  dissolving  of  older  and 


74  DISTINCTION 


harder  distinctions  ;  a  history  of  the  discovery  (or 
enforced  clearer  recognition)  of  borderland  cases. 
There  is  no  school  like  science — '  actual  facts ' — for 
learning  the  artificiality  of  distinctions,  and  the 
purely  human  origin  of  words,  their  tentative  and 
provisional  character,  and  the  danger  of  slavery  to 
them. 

The  practical  man,  however,  is  apt  to  remain 
unsatisfied  with  doctrines  so  '  theoretical '  as  these. 
He  finds  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  '  merely 
metaphysical '  difficulty,  to  which  he  is  ready  per- 
haps, for  the  sake  of  peace,  to  bow  with  polite 
condescension,  but  with  which  he  desires  no  nearer 
acquaintance.  These  truths  are  all  very  well  on 
paper,  he  admits,  but  they  only  concern  those  who 
have  leisure  to  play  at  philosophising.  And  he 
turns  with  relief  to  the  well-tried  doctrines  of 
common-sense. 

His  decision  is  partly  moral  and  partly  intel- 
lectual, and  it  is  only  the  latter  explanation  of  it 
with  which  we  have  here  to  do.  On  the  intellectual 
side,  what  chiefly  obscures  the  question  is  the  diffi- 
culty of  proving  the  continuity  of  Nature  in  certain 
cases.  A  notable  example  of  the  distinctions  in 
which  we  cannot  at  present  actually  trace  evolution, 
or  gradual  difference,  is  given  by  the  chemical  ele- 
ments. The  chemical  elements,  or,  let  us  say,  most 


IS  NATURE   CONTINUOUS   THROUGHOUT?    75 

of  them,  do  not  alarm  us  or  excite  our  hopes  by 
threatening  to  shade  off  into  each  other  ;  that  which 
is  not  gold,  at  any  rate,  never  progresses  a  step  on 
the  way  to  becoming  gold,  though  formerly  the 
hope  of  its  doing  so  guided  the  course  of  chemical 
experiment  for  ages.  Doubtless  it  may  be  theoreti- 
cally true  that  actual  specimens,  or  portions,  of  gold 
are  always  more  or  less  impure  ;  but  the  range  of 
really  discoverable  impurity  is  limited,  so  that  this 
theoretic  truth  is  of  limited  practical  value ;  to 
make  much  of  it  seems  as  nearly  wasted  ingenuity 
as  anything  can  be. 

Then  there  are  distinctions  whose  validity  can 
only  be  theoretically  denied — the  geometrical  dis- 
tinctions, for  instance,  like  that  between  straight 
and  crooked.  No  one  in  practice  concerns  himself 
with  the  reflection  that  a  line  as  drawn  is  never 
perfectly  straight,  or  that  since  it  has  breadth  it  is 
not  a  line  at  all.  We  are  now  speaking  of  the 
application  of  distinctions,  and  we  find  that  in 
these  and  similar  cases  the  distinctions  can  be 
actually  applied  so  as  to  satisfy  the  severest 
practical  scrutiny  of  the  most  ingenious  critic.1 

1  The  doubt  in  these  cases  shades  off  between  the  extremes  of 
more  and  less  far-fetched  or  unpractical.  Such  distinctions  as  that 
between  the  organism  and  its  environment  exemplify  various  stages 
of  practicality  in  the  doubt.  For  instance,  do  parasites,  generally, 
belong  to  the  organism  or  to  its  environment  ?  Some  are  more, 


76  DISTINCTION 


The  vagueness  of  the  line  between  animal  and. 
vegetable  only  comes  into  sight  when  we  push  the 
enquiry  to  an  unusual  length  ;  and  even  the  dis- 
tinction between  truth  and  falsity  can  be  put  to 
practical  service  by  every  candid  and  sensible 
mind. 

Another  kind  of  distinctions  might  also  be 
admitted  as  real  in  a  practical  sense.  Those  are 
the  distinctions  which  are  only  intended  to  be 
applied  within  a  specially  restricted  field,  and 
where,  accordingly,  doubtful  cases  are  practically 
prevented  from  arising.  If  we  take  a  ballot-box 
and  put  only  black  and  white  balls  into  it,  we  need 
not  fear  that  any  of  the  balls  when  drawn  will  be 
grey.  And  a  good  many  of  the  distinctions  in 
common  use  are  essentially  of  this  nature.  They 
are  made  on  purpose,  among  known  individual 
cases,  rather  than  intended  for  application  to 
unknown  or  future  cases  that  may  occur.  We  feel 
no  doubt  in  applying  the  distinction  between  the 
classes  of  railway-carriages,  or  between  towns  and 
cities,  peers  and  commoners,  clergy  and  laymen, 
crossed  and  uncrossed  cheques.  Such  distinctions 
are  carefully  guarded  against  difficulties  of  appli- 

others  less,  disadvantageous  and  so  opposed  to  the  organism,  less  or 
more  advantageous  and  so  necessary  to  it,  until  it  becomes  hard  to 
say  where  parasitism  properly  begins.  Are  blood-corpuscles  para- 
sites ? 


IS  NATURE   CONTINUOUS   THROUGHOUT?    77 


cation.  They  are  made  avowedly  for  the  purpose 
of  being  applied,  and  the  distinction-marks  are 
made  as  few  and  as  definite  as  possible.  I  do  not 
mean,  of  course,  that  mistakes  can  never  occur,  but 
that  where  the  facts  are  known  there  is  in  these  cases 
no  difficulty ;  while  in  the  case  of  any  natural  scale, 
like  youth  and  age,  or  heat  and  cold,  no  amount 
of  knowledge  of  the  facts  will  remove  the  difficulty. 
Rather,  it  is  an  increased  knowledge  of  the  facts 
that  has  made  the  difficulty  apparent. 

And  sometimes  the  sharpness  of  the  actual  line 
is  accomplished  by  natural  circumstances  instead 
of  by  legal  or  conventional  definition.  Suppose, 
for  example,  that  biologists  are  justified  in  their 
present  conception  of  the  fluid  nature  of  species, 
still  certain  existing  species  (e.g.  existing  men  and 
existing  apes)  may  very  well  be  clearly  distinct. 
The  actual  missing-links,  being  individuals,  have 
died  long  ago,  and  their  least-changed  descendants 
may  be  changed  enough  to  justify  the  sharpness 
of  the  (present)  line.  Again,  the  society  of  a  small 
town  may  provide  no  examples  of  the  truly  un- 
decided politician,  or  a  given  district  in  Africa  no 
mulattos.  It  should  be  confessed,  however,  that  the 
line  between  these  cases  and  those  where  the  field  of 
search  is  unrestricted  can  only  be  justified  by  the 
reader's  leave.  As  the  field  of  search  is  widened, 


78  DISTINCTION 

the  occurrence  of  doubtful  cases  becomes  less  and 
less  improbable.  In  a  given  village,  at  a  given  time, 
we  may  perhaps  know  all  the  voters  and  their 
political  views,  but  increase  the  size  of  the  village  or 
town  and  this  security  vanishes  ;  or  the  line  between 
two  existing  biological  species  may  be  really  sharp, 
while  if  we  extend  the  time  considered,  so  as  gradu- 
ally to  include  more  and  more  dead  individuals, 
doubtful  cases  will  sooner  or  later  occur.  Still,  it 
seems  that  we  must  admit  certain  cases  of  prac- 
tically real  distinctness  due  to  natural  or  artificial 
restriction  of  the  field  of  search,  as  well  as  some 
that  are  due  to  the  practical  limitations  of  our 
vision  or  testing  power. 

Such  facts  as  these  help  us  to  see  why  the  prac- 
tical man  thinks  lightly  of  the  doctrine  that  Nature 
is  continuous  throughout ;  or,  at  any  rate,  why  he 
regards  its  purpose  as  fulfilled  as  soon  as  he  has 
filed  the  admission  and  laid  it  away  on  an  upper 
mental  shelf.  And  we  may  gladly  follow  his  ex- 
ample, to  the  extent  at  least  of  fixing  attention 
chiefly  on  the  definitions  that  are  troublesome  in 
practice.  Our  present  purpose  is  to  show  the  ex- 
tent and  importance  of  unreal  distinctness — that 
is  to  say,  of  the  disagreement  between  definite  lan- 
guage and  fluid  facts, — and  I  only  mention  the 
seemingly  doubtful  examples  in  order  not  to  rest  a 


SS  NATURE   CONTINUOUS   THROUGHOUT?    79 

strong  case  on  weak  supports.  For  I  hope  to  show 
that,  in  spite  of  all  the  apparently  real  distinctness 
that  exists,  there  is  also  sufficient  admittedly  unreal 
distinctness  to  warrant  our  raising  the  question  how 
far  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  permanent 
sources  of  faulty  thinking  and  of  needless  heat  of 
controversy. 


CHAPTER   VII 

COMMON-SENSE   AS   DIVIDED   AGAINST   ITSELF 

IT  is  difficult,  as  everyone  knows,  to  discriminate 
between  paradoxes  l  which  are  interesting  and  those 
which  are  flat  and  trivial.  This  is  partly  because 
of  the  fact  that  one  person's  interest  in  a  given 
question  is  different  from  another's,  and  that  each 
person's  interest  in  them  varies  from  time  to  time, 
but  also  because  the  difference  is  really  a  gradual 
one.  This  or  that  paradox  may  deserve  any  shade 
of  treatment  between  the  utmost  respect  and  the 
utmost  disrespect.  And  the  question  occurs  to  one, 
Can  any  general  account  be  given  of  the  qualities 
or  conditions  that  make  a  paradox  respectable  ? 
How  is  it  that  some  are  only  foolish  or  dangerous 
playthings,  while  others  give  us  a  vision  of  un- 
familiar truth  ? 

We  are  here  concerned  specially  with  only  one 
group  of  paradoxes,  but  what  is  true  of  them  in 

1  '  Paradox '  is  here  used  in  its  older  sense,  as  simply  '  a  de- 
parture from  received  opinion.' 


COMMON-SENSE  AS  DIVIDED  81 

this  respect  is  true  of  all.  We  are  concerned  with 
the  judgment  that  a  distinction  which  claims  to  be 
sharp  and  commonly  passes  for  sharp  is,  strictly 
speaking,  rough,  or  artificially  sharpened.  And  we 
may  freely  admit  the  existence  of  cases  where  this 
judgment,  though  literally  correct,  has  little  or  no 
practical  value.  But  it  is  worth  remarking  that  in 
all  cases  what  chiefly  spoils  the  value  of  these  or 
of  other  paradoxes  is  the  quality  of  staleness.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  a  doctrine  should  be  perfectly 
true  in  order  that  it  shall  possess  interest  and 
value — perfect  truth  is  so  difficult  of  attainment 
that  even  the  wisest  human  minds  find  interest 
and  value  in  truths  that  are  imperfect  ;  but  it  is 
necessary  that  a  doctrine,  besides  containing  a 
certain  amount  of  truth,  should  somehow  avoid  the 
appearance  of  staleness — of  having  been  seen,  ad- 
mitted, and  pushed  aside  as  trivial.  For  the  charge 
of  being  already  admitted  is,  when  justly  brought, 
the  most  damning  charge  that  can  ever  be  brought 
against  an  assertion.  At  least,  the  truths  that  are 
worth  asserting  are  never  those  that  our  audience 
fully  accept  as  true. 

And  staleness,  of  course,  is  a  quality  that  para- 
doxical opinions  are  apt  to  possess  unawares. 
There  are  many  kinds  of  paradox  that  attract  us 
most  when  we  are  young  and  inexperienced,  or 

G 


82  DISTINCTION 


that  attract  especially  those  who  know  little  about 
what  others  have  thought  before  them.  And  since 
it  is  easy  to  call  a  truth  stale  as  soon  as  we  see  that 
we  really  must  admit  it,  this  is  perhaps  the  charge 
most  frequently  brought  by  common-sense  against, 
for  instance,  the  doubts  about  drawing  the  line  in 
Nature.  These  flux-theories,  we  are  told,  have  been 
before  the  world  since  the  time  of  Heraclitus. 
Everyone  knows  all  about  the  difficulty  ;  no  one  in 
practice  minds  it  now  ;  if  we  must  have  a  puzzle  to 
play  with,  let  it  be  something  rather  less  old  and 
worn. 

In  order  to  give  due  weight  to  this  natural 
form  of  objection,  I  have  referred  expressly  above  l 
to  the  part  played  by  '  common-sense  tact '  in  the 
use  of  distinctions.  And,  indeed,  we  cannot,  I 
think,  pretend  to  overlook  the  fact  that  common- 
sense  is  certainly  not  always  deceived  by  unreal 
distinctions — that  it  has  to  a  great  extent  acquired 
the  art  of  taking  and  using  them  lightly,  with 
knowledge  of  their  faults.  And  so  it  must  often 
happen  that  the  laboured  proof  that  a  distinc- 
tion is  faulty  wears  a  perfectly  genuine  look 
of  staleness ;  we  never  really  forget,  for  instance, 
that  a  continent,  like  an  island,  is  '  land  surrounded 
by  water,'  so  that  only  a  gradual  difference  of  size 

1  Pages  17,  36. 


COMMON-SENSE  AS  DIVIDED  83 

is  referred  to  by  the  distinction  ;  or  that  a  child 
becomes  a  man  by  imperceptible  stages  ;  and  in 
plenty  of  similar  cases  we  are  fully  accustomed  to 
take  the  distinctions  '  for  what  they  are  worth,'  and 
to  use  them  gently.  And  if  we  could  somehow 
distinguish  these  cases  from  those  where  common- 
sense  is  actually  deluded,  we  should  then  have  dis- 
covered what  are  the  more  important  kinds  of 
unreal  distinctness. 

Few  things  are  more  difficult  than  to  prove 
common-sense  in  a  given  case  more  rigid  and 
clumsy  than  it  claims  to  be.  Tact  in  the  use  of 
distinctions  is,  of  course,  not  possessed  by  all  men 
equally,  nor  by  any  man  equally  on  all  occasions, 
and  even  our  most  effective  tact  of  to-day  will 
doubtless  be  later  seen  as  insufficient.  But  these 
are  merely  general  considerations,  and  the  special 
case  must  always  stand  on  its  merits.  How,  then, 
shall  we  ever  distinguish  safely  between  the  false 
and  the  justified  claim  to  have  duly  discounted  a 
given  distinction  ? 

Fortunately,  we  can  separate  to  some  extent 
the  disputed  from  the  undisputed  claims.  The 
cases  where  common -sense  tact  is  even  apparently 
successful  certainly  do  not  cover  all  the  ground. 
We  find  a  considerable  number  of  questions  in 


84  DISTINCTION 

regard  to  which  common-sense  opinion  is  strongly 
divided  as  to  the  stress  that  ought  to  be  laid  on  a 
given  distinction  ;  we  find,  that  is,  more  than  one 
grade  of  self-styled  common-sense,  or  insight 
into  realities.  Philosophy,  religion,  worldly  wisdom, 
science,  poetry,  each  in  the  name  of  insight  over- 
ride distinctions  that  the  others  are  wont  to  mag- 
nify, or  dwell  on  distinctions  that  the  others  regard 
as  misleading.  At  any  period  in  the  history  of 
thought  there  is  conflict  of  opinion  as  regards  a 
large  number  of  stated  doctrines  ;  and,  as  noticed 
above,1  in  all  the  more  lasting  conflicts  of  opinion 
some  difference  of  view  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
a  name  is  to  be  interpreted,  a  distinction  applied, 
lies  at  the  root  of  the  controversy. 

That,  then,  appears  to  be  a  sufficient  answer 
to  the  objection  that  we  have  heard  all  about 
the  continuity  of  Nature  long  ago.  We  have  heard 
many  things  long  ago  that  we  need  to  hear  again. 
It  is  only  quite  lately — only  since  1859 — that 
common-sense  has  begun  to  make  much  use  of  the 
notion  that  distinctions  are  fluid,  and  the  two  stages 
of  objection  that  come  before  the  claim  to  '  have 
known  it  all  along  '  are  hardly  yet  left  behind.  And 
though  tact  in  dealing  with  fluid  distinctions  is 
everywhere  to  be  seen  at  work,  some  failure  in 
1  Page  55. 


COMMON-SENSE  AS  DIVIDED  85 

its  working  is  shown   wherever   common-sense  is 
divided  against  itself. 

And,  broadly  speaking,  we  find  that  it  is  im- 
material things  that  raise  most  disputation.  In 
regard  to  material  things  common-sense  is  perhaps 
seldom  much  at  fault  The  most  treacherous 
kind  of  unreal  distinctness  occurs  where  the '  thing ' 
that  is  named  is  (like  culture)  never  found  pure  in 
the  concrete  world  at  all.  It  was  suggested  above 
that  truth  and  falsity  are  possibly  things  of  this 
description.  To  find  a  satisfactory  example  of  a 
perfectly  true  statement,  or  even  a  perfectly  false 
one,  is  held  by  some  philosophers  to  be  a  task  of 
infinite  difficulty.  Animals  and  vegetables,  islands 
and  gold  and  children,  such  things  as  these  are  easy 
to  find  in  Nature  ;  they  do  not  require  to  be  imagined 
by  an  effort,  or  sifted  ideally  out  of  a  larger  whole, 
from  which  they  are  never  found  separate.  They 
are  what  common-sense  everywhere  agrees  to 
regard  as  things.  But  many  things  that  are  named 
are  admittedly  things  by  courtesy  only  ;  common- 
sense  is  in  two  minds  about  their  real  reality,  but  is 
willing,  nevertheless,  to  regard  them  as  real  for  the 
moment.  We  need  not  here  press  the  example  of 
truth  and  falsity,  if  by  chance  it  appears  far-fetched. 
There  are  cases  enough,  as  we  noticed  above,1 

1  Chap.  v.  pp.  60-69. 


86  DISTINCTION 


where  common-sense  is  fully  aware  of  this  kind 
of  unreal  reality,  and  plenty  of  other  cases  where 
it  is  perfectly  able  at  times  to  become  aware  of  it. 

These  immaterial  entities  that  so  frequently 
lead  common-sense  into  an  actual  difficulty  are 
sometimes  called  '  abstractions.'  An  abstraction, 
as  such,  is  something  simpler,  purer,  more  ideal 
(whether  better  or  not)  than  what  we  find  in  Nature. 
Evil,  for  instance,  is  an  abstraction — actual  things 
being  more  or  less  evil,  but  never  entirely  so  ;  if 
required  to  give  an  example  of  unmixed  evil,  among 
phenomena,  we  could  not  find  a  perfectly  unex- 
ceptionable case.  And  the  typical  abstractions 
are  what  are  commonly  called  qualities,  or  attri- 
butes. Attributes,  when  named  in  order  to  be 
spoken  about,  are  always  something  abstract  ;  as 
we  noticed  above,  they  are  not  found  existing  in- 
dependently of  things  that  possess  them  in  greater 
or  less  degree.  Thus,  when  we  analyse  some  total 
into  parts  that  are  not  found  separate  from  the 
whole — e.g.  the  various  '  faculties  '  of  the  mind, 
memory,  imagination,  and  the  like,  or  the  various 
aspects  of  anything,  or  the  list  of  qualities  essential 
to  any  species — the  parts  distinguished  are  abstrac- 
tions ;  they  are  not  producible  pure.  And  the 
reason  why  abstractions  are  so  troublesome  is  that 
the  roughness  of  a  distinction  between  producible 


COMMON-SENSE  AS  DIVIDED  87 

things — things  of  which  a  concrete  instance  can  be 
given — is  comparatively  harmless,  since  the  correc- 
tion of  these  names  by  facts  is  so  much  more  easily 
managed.  In  recent  times,  at  any  rate,  the  habit 
of  remembering  that  concrete  things  are  for  the 
most  part  named  and  classified  somewhat  roughly 
has  taken  root  even  in  popular  modes  of  thought, 
and  is  growing  and  flourishing  strongly  before  the 
eyes  of  the  present  generation  ;  so  that  it  has 
become  an  anachronism  to  let  the  names  of  natural 
objects  greatly  obscure  the  facts  about  them.  When 
natural  objects  are  in  question  we  go  to  Nature  at 
first  hand  in  cases  of  difficulty,  instead  of  appealing 
to  the  guesses  at  fact  that  are  handed  down  in 
language. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SPOILT   WORDS 

IT  appears,  then,  that  the  custom  of  naming  un- 
realities as  if  they  were  real  is  the  chief  source 
of  unreal  distinctness  of  the  practically  troublesome 
kind.  But  I  wish,  further,  to  show  in  a  more  com- 
plete way  the  extent  of  the  influence  of  unreal 
distinctness  upon  ordinary  modes  of  thought.  For 
the  reasons  mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter  we 
shall  say  little  or  nothing  of  its  possible  influence 
in  the  cases  where  substantial  agreement  is  reached 
by  the  mass  of  opinion  which  can  fairly  be  called 
orthodoxy  in  any  department  of  knowledge. 
Though  I  confess  to  a  pious  opinion  that  even  there 
unreal  distinctness  is  operative — in  fact,  if  there  be 
such  a  thing  as  progress  in  knowledge,  this  must l 
be  so — yet  the  claim  that  common-sense  makes 
to  be  able  to  treat  rough  distinctions  lightly  and 

1  '  Must : '  for  all  incompleteness  of  knowledge  expresses  itself  in 
unreal  distinctness  (or  '  abstractness ') ;  which  in  turn  acts  as  a  drag 
upon  progress.  See  pp.  73,  99,  242-245,  248. 


SPOILT   WORDS  89 

safely  seems  to  me  too  plausible  to  be  disproved  in 
given  cases,  except  where  common-sense  is  plainly 
divided  against  itself. 

But  this  is  a  large  exception.  It  implies 
that  unreal  distinctness  is  at  work  wherever  one 
man's  opinion  conflicts  with  another's,  or  wherever 
our  judgment  is  pulled  two  ways — so  far  at  least 
as  the  difference  of  opinion  is  irreducible  by  an 
appeal  to  '  facts.'  And  the  range  of  what  may  be 
called  '  ideal  disputes '  becomes  a  great  deal  wider 
when  considered  in  its  beginnings  than  when  we 
connect  the  notion,  as  we  did  in  Chapter  IV.,  with 
only  the  more  striking  developments  of  it.  These 
great  growths  of  the  party  spirit  have  had  their 
origin  in  little  germs  that  are  hardly  noticed  at 
first.  Words  pass  current  not  because  they  mean 
the  same  to  everybody,  but  rather  because  we  can 
manage  to  agree  to  keep  the  differences  out  of 
sight ;  if  we  once  begin  to  be  universally  strict  about 
definition  we  miss  not  only  the  charm  of  'fluid  and 
passing'  intercourse  and  the  general  graces  of 
conversation,  but  something  also  of  much  greater 
importance  philosophically — namely,  the  habit  of 
distinguishing  between  more  and  less  dangerous 
vagueness,  and  of  seizing  on  the  broader  outlines 
of  meaning  which  are  needed  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion of  any  efficient  attention  to  detail.  So 


90  DISTINCTION 


that  forces  are  always  at  work  to  smother  con- 
flicts of  opinion,  which  nevertheless  are  only 
waiting  for  a  breath  of  wind  to  fan  them  into 
a  blaze. 

As  illustrative  of  this  stage  of  repressed  ideal 
conflict,  I  would  choose  the  class  of  what  may  be 
called  spoilt  words.  By  these  are  here  meant  not 
only  cant  words  ' — expressions  used  because  they 
are  somehow  fashionable — but  also  and  specially 
all  words  whose  sense  has  been  vulgarised  by  their 
being  applied  to  the  more  showy,  more  easily  under- 
stood forms  of  that  which  they  try  to  name,  as,  for 
instance,  the  words  genteel  or  worthy  have  suffered 
in  their  time,2  or  as  the  word  clever  is  suffering 
to-day  ;  till  at  last  to  call  anyone '  genteel '  would  be, 
in  effect,  to  call  him  '  ill-bred  '  ;  to  call  anyone 
'  worthy '  means  that  we  think  lightly  of  his  worth  ; 
and  soon,  perhaps,  we  shall  only  call  people  clever 
when  we  mean  that  they  are  narrow  and  sharp  and 

1  And  there  are  other  forms  of  the  spoiling  of  words,  which  do 
not  concern  us  here.  For  instance,  the  case  where  an  often-used 
phrase  influences  the  meaning  of  one  of  the  words  composing  it. 
Thus  the  word  incarnate,  from  its  frequent  connection  with  fiend, 
appears  to  mean  to  some  people  almost  the  same  as  infernal. 

-  It  should  be  noticed  that  spoilt  words  do  not  remain  '  spoilt ' 
for  ever.  After  a  time  they  simply  take  a  new  (unambiguous) 
meaning.  If  the  reader  thinks  the  words  '  genteel '  and  '  worthy-'  have 
not  yet  done  so,  perhaps  the  word  silly,  which  once  meant  nearly 
the  same  as  happy  or  blest,  or  the  modern  German  schlecht,  which 
once  meant  nearly  the  same  as  good,  will  serve  as  examples. 


SPOILT   WORDS  91 


conceited.  Spoilt  words,  in  short,  are  all  words 
that  perform  their  descriptive  function  clumsily,  by- 
failing  to  tell  us  which  of  two  very  different  things 
is  meant ;  words  which  are  used  by  wise  and 
foolish  alike,  but  with  different  application.  The 
words  wise  and  foolish  are  themselves  examples  in 
point,  and  in  fact  all  common  and  current  epithets 
which  impute  praise  or  blame  or  contempt  are 
extremely  liable  to  grow  into  this  condition.  The 
child  condemns  or  praises  with  a  broad  epithet 
where  the  man  can  find  no  suitable  word.  The 
sentimental  and  the  cynical  youth  condemn 
'cynicism'  and  'sentiment'  in  a  more  sweeping 
manner  than  they  will  care  to  condemn  them  a  few 
years  hence ;  and  the  very  people  whom  I  to-day 
should  describe  by  the  uncomplimentary  titles  just 
used,  may  be  seen  by  my  wiser  neighbours  to 
be  '  good  hearted  '  and  '  sensible  '  respectively. 
As  the  Master  of  Ballantrae  remarks,  '  there  are 
double  words  for  everything  :  the  word  that  swells, 
the  word  that  belittles.  .  .  Call  it  vanity,  call  it 
greatness  of  soul,  what  signifies  the  expression  ?  ' 

When  we  find  vague  words  like  these  applied 
by  a  person  whom  we  think  less  knowing  than 
ourselves,  we  feel  that  some  protest  or  objection 
is  needed  if  we  are  to  guard  against  mistakes 
of  meaning ;  the  spoilt  word  seems  clumsy  to  us, 


92  DISTINCTION 


flat,  deficient  in  point  ;  it  blurs  important  differ- 
ences which  are  of  the  essence  of  the  assertion 
supposed  to  be  made.  Our  claim  to  fuller  know- 
ledge of  realities  (i.e.  of  actual  cases)  leads  us  to 
distinguish  where  the  other  person  sees  no  differ- 
ence of  meaning ;  we  have  learnt  to  recognise 
various  sorts  of  cleverness,  courage,  &c.,  and 
accordingly  find  the  bare  name  ambiguous  ;  the 
epithet  clever,  for  instance,  does  not  tell  us  what 
kind  of  mental  excellence  to  look  for — breadth,  or 
depth,  or  tenacity,  or  merely  quickness,  or  possibly 
cunning ;  the  epithet  brave  leaves  us  uncertain 
how  much  of  the  better  part  of  valour  to  expect, 
or  how  far  the  bravery  requires  an  audience  or 
depends  upon  coarseness  of  fibre,  or  dull  percep- 
tion ;  the  epithet  generous  may  merely  mean  im- 
pulsive and  short-sighted,  or  fond  of  popularity,  or 
reckless  of  expense.  And  the  chief  difference 
between  intercourse  with  our  equals  and  with  those 
whom  we  fancy  to  be  less  experienced  is  that  in 
the  latter  case  so  many  useful  notions  are  rendered 
useless ;  a  Christian  finds  the  word  faith  unsatis- 
factory as  used  by  an  unbeliever  ;  a  philosopher 
finds  the  word  proof  applied  to  all  sorts  of  faulty 
evidence  ;  and  the  specialist  everywhere  feels  the 
same  sort  of  check  upon  intercourse  with  outsiders 
that  is  felt  by  us  all  in  speaking  in  our  own 


SPOILT   WORDS  93 

language  to  a  foreigner  possessing  only  a  smatter- 
ing of  it.  The  finer  hints  of  meaning  are  absent 
from  between  the  lines  of  the  talk  ;  words  have  to 
be  chosen  for  their  simple  harmlessness  rather 
than  for  any  positive  kind  of  excellence,  and  the 
style  and  the  matter  alike  become  cramped  and 
meagre. 

But  the  spoiling  of  words  is,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  a  delicate  and  unpopular  subject  to  treat 
in  any  detail,  just  because  there  is  so  little  agree- 
ment as  to  which  words  are  spoilt  and  which  are 
not.     For  instance,  I  cannot  hope  that  even  the 
few   common   examples  given  above  will    satisfy 
every  reader.     To  a  certain  extent  the  whole  tend- 
ency to  claim  that  given  words  are  spoilt  is  dis- 
liked by  common-sense,  as  being  an  outcome  of 
the  exclusive  or  priggish  spirit,  or  at  best  pedantic 
and  tiresome.    Yet,  fortunately,  here  again  we  find 
common-sense   at  various  levels,  and    so  divided 
against  itself ;  even  to  the  commonest  sense  some 
words  seem  vulgarised,  the  main  difference  in  this 
respect  between  the  higher  and  the  lower  grades  of 
realistic  insight  being  that  every  higher  grade  is 
inclined  to  find  more  words  thus  faulty  than  the 
grades  that    lie  beneath  it.     The  commoner  the 
sense,  the  more  ready  it  is  to  accept  as  sufficient 
the  rough,  uncriticised  notions  that  come  first  to  its 


94  DISTINCTION 

hand.  It  is  rather  the  literary  critic,  for  instance, 
than  the  general  reader,  who  finds  any  fault  with 
the  distinction  between  the  novel  of  incident  and 
the  novel  of  character,  or  between  realism  and 
idealism  in  art. 

The  best  apology  that  we  can  make,  however, 
for  seeming  here  to  deride  all  popular  modes  of 
thought  is  to  admit  freely  that,  if  the  use  of  clumsy 
descriptive  names  were  wholly  unjustifiable,  the 
class  of  perplexities  thence  arising  would  be  far 
less  troublesome  than  they  are.  Common-sense, 
as  usual,  is  here  in  close  sympathy  with  the  genius 
of  language.  The  '  general  name'  itself — the  basis 
of  language —  exists  by  neglect  of  minor  differences 
in  favour  of  broad  resemblance.  One  of  its  func- 
tions is  to  give  us  an  outline  which  riper  experience 
may  modify.  Hair-splitting  is  only  possible  when 
the  hairs  are  already  there  to  split,  and  if  our 
notions  are  to  become  refined  and  more  realistic, 
the  simpler  and  more  wordy  notions  must  somehow 
be  gathered  first.  Besides,  it  is  hard  to  conceive 
the  total  disuse  of  our  first  rough  sketches  of 
things.  Not  only  have  they  a  value  for  children, 
or  for  those  who  live  in  the  hurry  and  press  of 
business,  but  their  necessity  comes  home  at  times 
to  everyone.  If  Nature  is  continuous,  all  general 
names  are  to  some  extent  liable  to  the  fault  we  are 


SPOILT   WORDS  95 

here  discussing.  The  insufficiency  of  descriptive 
words  to  perform  their  descriptive  function  is  never 
entirely  conquered — that  is  to  say,  the  individual 
case  is  always  richer  in  detail  than  any  or  all  of  its 
class-names  strictly  indicate.  The  clumsiness  of 
descriptive  names  is,  therefore,  itself  only  a  matter 
of  degree  and  occasion,  and  the  permanent  problem 
is  not  the  impossible  one  of  avoiding  all  such  clum- 
siness, but  the  practical  one  of  avoiding  just  so 
much  of  it  as  is  relevant  to  the  matter  that  happens 
to  be  in  hand. 

We  need  rough  names,  then,  as  well  as  exact 
ones.  Just  in  the  same  way  as  all  general  names 
are  useful — that  is  to  say,  in  enabling  us  to  blaze  a 
path  through  a  forest  of  troublesome  details — so  the 
names  which  are  most  open  to  the  charge  of  clum- 
siness are  for  that  very  reason  most  useful  in  their 
place.  If  we  try  to  do  without  any  one  of  the 
words  just  quoted  as  examples,  we  are  conscious 
of  a  loss  ;  it  is  a  pity,  we  feel,  that  so  useful  a  name 
as  clever  or  wise  or  generous  should  be  thrown  away 
altogether  as  condemned  by  its  wrong  applications  ; 
and,  in  fact,  where  a  meaning  has  become  completely 
reversed,  we  generally  do  invent  some  other  way  ! 
of  expressing  the  originil  meaning.  Though 

1  Or  else  we  show,  by  our  hesitation  in  choosing  a  word  at  all, 
our  regret  that  all  the  available  words  are  spoilt. 


96  DISTINCTION 


the   word    be   clumsy   on    certain    occasions — for 
instance,  in  a  testimonial  written  by  a  stranger — 
yet  life  is  not  long  enough  to  give  us  a  chance  of 
always  refining  our  notions  to  the  utmost ;  there 
are  times  when  the  slight  ambiguity  causes  less 
harm    than  would    come  from  the  check    to  our 
thoughts.     And    hence  it   is  that   this  source  of 
trouble  belongs  to  the  permanent  class.     In  the  use 
of  language  we  are  beset  by  two  opposite  dangers — 
blindness  to  important  differences,  and  confusion 
or  waste  of  time  through  attending  to  unimportant 
ones  ;  and  the  practical  problem  is  always  to  find 
the    proper   compromise,  or  rather  to  distinguish 
with    increasingly  greater  correctness  the  relative 
importance  of  differences  in  regard  to  a  constantly 
shifting  and  various  set  of  occasions. 

The  chief  purpose  of  Chapters  IV.  to  VIII.  in- 
clusive has  been  to  show  the  extent  of  unreal 
distinctness  that  exists  in  language  and  in  our 
habitual  ways  of  thought.  We  have  found  that  in 
perfect  strictness  every  • '  general  notion  '  suffers 
from  this  fault,  and  that  even  if  we  are  content 
with  a  more  practical  view — content  to  notice  only 
so  much  of  it  as,  through  being  insufficiently  dis- 
counted, leads  to  confusion  of  thought  as  shown 
in  difference  of  opinion — the  extent  of  its  influence 


SPOILT   WORDS  97 

is  considerable.  All  words  that  perform  their  de- 
scriptive function  clumsily  are,  in  so  far,  ambigu- 
ous, and  the  clumsiness  of  descriptive  words  is 
relative  to  the  completeness  of  description  desired. 
So  that  wherever  two  minds  desire  completeness 
of  description  unequally,  the  words  used  in  de- 
scribing will  appear  more  clumsy  to  one  than  to  the 
other.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  find  that  the 
effects  of  insufficient  description  begin  to  be  widely 
felt  as  soon  as  we  talk  about  immaterial  things. 
Where  the  faults  of  a  name  can  easily  be  corrected 
by  reference  to  facts,  words  do  not — in  modern 
times  at  least — greatly  mislead  us.  But  abstrac- 
tions or  ideals  are  likely  long  to  remain  a  source 
of  bewilderment  and  error.  Fpr  their  names  are 
always  of  loose  application,  and  mean  different 
things  to  minds  at  different  levels  of  realistic 
knowledge.  We  have  next  to  enquire  more  pre- 
cisely what  effects  may  be  produced  by  the  use  of 
ambieruous  words. 


H 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE   EFFECTS   OF  AMBIGUITY 

AMBIGUITY,  or  clumsiness  of  description,  has  two 
very  different  sets  of  effects,  the  difference  depend- 
ing on  whether  the  clumsiness  is  recognised. 
Unseen  ambiguity  shows  itself  in  what  is  usually 
called  narrowness  or  hardness  of  view.  This  fault 
has  been  already  mentioned  more  than  once — for 
instance,  in  speaking  of  '  idealisation  and  caricature.1 
We  noticed  there  how  the  difference  between  op- 
ponents is  exaggerated,  and  how  the  truth  which  is 
confusedly  seen  by  each  is  hidden  from  the  other, 
by  the  artificiality  of  much  of  the  opposition  be- 
tween them.  When  the  line  between  Conservative 
and  Liberal,  for  instance,  is  drawn  too  sharply, 
actual  mistakes  of  fact  are  made  as  to  the  real 
aims  of  each  of  the  opposite  parties.  But  the 
direct  effect  of  unsuspected  roughness  in  a  dis- 

1  Chap.  IV. 


THE  EFFECTS   OF  AMBIGUITY  99 

tinction  may  be  understood  better  by  reference  to 
our  remarks  on  the  spoiling  of  words.  The  am- 
biguous word  and  the  clumsy  word  are  the  same. 
To  believe  too  rigidly  in  distinctions  is  the  same  as 
to  generalise  superficially,  or  to  believe  in  a  rule 
without  understanding  its  conditions  and  limita- 
tions, and  so  without  making  allowance  for  the 
exceptional  cases.  So  that  unseen  ambiguity  is 
the  same  as  excessive  abstractness  or  thinness  of 
view — insufficient  complexity  and  attention  to 
detail — a  fault  which,  so  far  as  knowledge  is  pro- 
gressive, is  gradually  being  conquered. 

But  in  the  act  of  seeing  the  unreality  of  a  dis- 
tinction we  lose  sight  of  the  meaning  which  that 
distinction  gives.  One  way  of  describing  the  pur- 
pose of  distinctions  generally,  is  to  say  that  they 
exist  in  order  to  give  predicative  meaning  to  names. 
That  is  not  the  explanation  of  how  every  dis- 
tinction arose — for  the  distinction  between  light 
and  darkness,  for  instance,  is  probably  drawn  by 
animals  that  are  far  from  having  a  language — but 
wherever  a  name  exists  with  a  meaning,  there  a 
distinction  is  drawn,  inevitably,  by  the  mind  that 
apprehends  that  meaning  ;  and  on  the  clearness  of 
the  distinction,  to  that  mind,  the  definiteness  of 
the  meaning  depends.  By  '  predicative  meaning ' 
is  meant  what  J.  S.  Mill  and  others  have  meant  by 

H  2 


ioo  DISTINCTION 


'  connotation.' '     For  convenience  we  will  here  call 
it  '  meaning '  simply. 

The  broad  fact  that  the  meaning  of  names 
everywhere  implies  and  depends  upon  distinction 
is  not  very  difficult  to  grasp.  Of  language  wholly 
free  from  distinction,  indeed,  we  have  no  experience 
and  can  form  no  steady  conception  ;  we  cannot 
observe,  or  even  imagine  except  quite  negatively, 
what  would  become  of  a  language  if  all  its  dis- 
tinctions were  swept  away ;  but  we  can  easily 
observe  the  effect  of  the  disappearance  of  this  or 
that  distinction.  And  though  we  may  not  be 
able  to  find  a  case  of  the  total  or  permanent 
disappearance  of  a  distinction  that  has  once  been 
seen,  yet  partial  or  temporary  disappearance — 
partial  or  temporary  identification  of  A  with 
non-A — is  common  enough.  This  occurs,  in  fact, 
wherever  we  recognise  that  a  distinction  strictly 

1  The  'connotation'  of  a  name  may  be  explained  as  the  con- 
ditions under  which  that  name  is  intended  to  be  applicable — applic- 
able as  a  predicate  to  any  subject.  If  a  name  A  has  any  predicative 
meaning,  no  subject  (S)  can  rightly  be  called  A  unless  certain 
conditions  are  satisfied  ;  A  implies  (or  indicates,  or  signifies)  C,  for 
instance  ;  so  that  if  S  is  not  C  it  does  not  deserve  to  be  called  A. 
In  this  way  there  are  always  assumed  to  be  certain  facts  which,  if 
true,  would  deprive  S  of  the  right  to  be  called  A.  For  if  there 
were  no  such  possible  facts,  there  would  be  no  point  in  the  predica- 
tion. Any  other  predicate  (e.g.  non-A  instead  of  A)  would  do  as 
well.  By  the  '  denotation '  of  a  name,  on  the  other  hand,  is  meant 
the  things  or  cases  to  which  it  is  intended  to  be  applied. 


THE   EFFECTS  OF  AMBIGUITY          101 

depends  on  a  gradual  difference — wherever  we 
think  we  see  the  continuity  of  Nature.  And  the 
effect  of  such  recognition,  while  it  lasts,  is  to 
destroy  the  force,  the  value  or  meaning,  of  each 
of  the  names  A  and  non-A.  What,  for  instance, 
is  the  point  of  the  epithet  sane  (or  insane]  where 
the  doubtfulness  of  the  line  between  them  is 
brought  before  our  notice? 

The  reason  is,  that  the  meaning  of  any  word 
is  essentially  a  case  of  '  value,'  or  comparison — of 
standing  out  clearly  against  a  background.  Where 
the  outline  is  blurred  the  meaning  is  lost.  This 
may  be  seen  either  by  imagining  an  extreme  case 
or  by  taking  any  one  of  the  actual  cases  of  partial 
blurring  that  are  so  common.  The  extreme  case 
could  only  be  furnished  by  a  name  which  should 
profess  to  be  applicable  to  everything  indiscrimin- 
ately. Perhaps  the  nearest  approach  we  have  to 
such  a  name  is  the  word  '  thing  ' — at  any  rate  in 
such  forms  as  'something'  'anything,'  'nameable 
thing.'  True,  that  if  we  ask  whether  (e.g.}  virtue 
is  a  '  thing '  we  can  put  a  meaning  into  the 
question  ;  but  this  is  precisely  by  contrasting  the 
notion  of  '  thing  '  with  some  other  notion,  such  as 
<  attribute,'  which  contrast,  or  distinction,  serves  to 
give  point  to  the  question.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
should  find  it  impossible  to  put  a  meaning  into 


102  DISTINCTION 


the  question  whether  virtue  is  '  something,'  or  is  a 
'  nameable  thing ' — since  if  it  is  not  something 
there  is  nothing  else  for  it  to  be ;  and  besides,  in 
naming  it  we  have  already  answered  the  question 
whether  it  is  nameable. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  an  epithet  or  a  class-name 
which  might  be  applied  to  anything  indifferently 
would  be  received  with  complete  indifference  if 
once  that  fact  were  clear — to  be  without  the  deco- 
ration would  be  more  distingue.  Take,  for  instance, 
a  word  like  '  natural.'  The  whole  point  of  the 
epithet  natural  lies  in  the  existence  of  things  that 
in  some  sense  or  other  may  be  called  unnatural ; 
were  everything  in  the  universe  natural,  then  to 
apply  that  predicate  to  any  particular  thing  would 
be  a  waste  of  breath.  But  just  because  language 
has  grown  up  under  the  pressure  of  practical  needs, 
no  existing  epithet  exactly  illustrates  so  total  a 
want  of  '  point,'  or  predicative  meaning.  Indeed, 
the  difficulty  is  rather  to  find,  when  we  want  them, 
words  that  are  wide  enough  to  deal,  as  some 
philosophers  have  attempted  to  do,  with  all-inclu- 
sive subjects  like  Being  in  general,  or  Nature  in  the 
widest  sense.  Thus,  Hegel  finds  that  pure  Being 
is  the  same  as  Nothing,  and  Spinoza  has  to  distin- 
guish natura  naturans  from  natura  naturata.  Yet 
partial  failure  in  '  point '  is  common  enough.  In 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  AMBIGUITY  103 

order  to  found  the  complaint,  for  instance,  that  the 
predicate  '  natural '  lacks  point,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  raise  the  rather  far-fetched  objection  that  every- 
thing is  natural,  and  therefore  that  nothing  is  speci- 
ally marked  out  by  the  designation.  It  is  enough 
that  the  word  natural  lacks  clearness  of  definition. 
A  natural  manner,  for  example,  is  so  well  known 
to  be  charming,  that  to  be  natural  without  at  the 
same  time  knowing  it  is  a  rather  uncommon  ac- 
complishment in  grown-up  people ;  and  of  course 
to  be  consciously  natural,  and  still  more  to  be 
natural  of  set  design,  is  to  play  tricks  with  the  line 
between  natural  and  artificial.  We  hardly  know 
how  to  describe  a  natural  manner  which  is  just  a 
little  conscious  of  itself.  The  epithet  loses  its  value 
when  the  line  begins  to  melt  away.  So  again,  unless 
we  draw  a  distinct  line  between  infancy  and  man- 
hood the  assertion  that  So-and-so  is  (or  is  not)  of 
full  age  becomes  only  capable  of  carrying  a  broad 
and  rough  meaning ;  and,  in  certain  contexts  at 
least,  a  rough  meaning  is  the  same  as  no  meaning 
at  all,  inasmuch  as  it  cannot  be  used  for  drawing 
consequences.  If,  for  instance,  the  fact  of  infancy 
is  to  be  pleaded  as  a  reason  for  not  paying  debts, 
there  must  be  a  clear  understanding  as  to  the 
date  when  '  infancy '  ends.  In  this  way,  then,  dis- 
tinction is  required  in  order  that  any  word  may 


104  DISTINCTION  ' 

have  consequence,  or  meaning.  Distinction  stiffens 
language,  gives  it  shape  and  consistency,  acts  as 
backbone  ;  and  where  no  sharp  distinction  exists 
in  Nature  the  needs  of  practice  often  compel  us  to 
form  one  artificially.  It  is  because  predication 
always  involves  a  choice  between  yes  and  no,  that 
its  meaning  depends  on  sharp  distinction.  Assent 
and  denial  must  be  distinctly  different  in  meaning 
if  either  of  them  is  to  have  a  meaning  at  all.  The 
sine  qua  non  of  meaning  in  any  predication  is  that 
the  predicates  A  and  non-A  shall  not  be  applic- 
able with  indifference — as  happens  where  the  line 
between  them  is  dissolved.  It  is  this  considera- 
tion chiefly,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter, 
that  makes  the  Socratic  method  of  demand- 
ing definitions  so  formidable  a  controversial 
weapon. 

But  the  chief  difficulty  of  the  question  lies  in 
wait  for  us  beyond  this  point.  If  Nature  is  con- 
tinuous, all  distinctions  are  rough,  all  predications 
therefore  incompletely  definite.  But  surely  not  all 
predications  are  quite  devoid  of  meaning  ?  How 
far,  then,  are  we  prepared  to  press  the  doctrine  that 
meaning  depends  on  sharp  distinction  ?  Is  the 
value  of  distinctions  itself  a  matter  of  degree, 
depending  perhaps  upon  the  extent  of  borderland, 
— so  that  names  may  be  regarded  as  less  and  more 


THE  EFFECTS   OF  AMBIGUITY          105 

ambiguous  and  their  meaning  as  greater  and  less 
in  amount — or  does  meaning  stand  and  fall  with 
absolutely  sharp  distinction,  real  or  pretended  ? 
Let  us  see  what  is  said  in  favour  of  each  of  these 
two  conflicting  views. 

On  the  one  side  it  is  freely  admitted  that  the 
applicability  of  a  given  distinction  to  actual  cases 
is  an  important  element  of  its  value  or  meaning, 
and  that  if  we  were  to  confess  in  a  given  case  that 
the  things  '  distinguished  '  were  perfectly  indistin- 
guishable in  practice,  the  value  of  the  distinction 
would  be  wholly  gone.  But  then,  we  are  reminded, 
the  things  that  language  distinguishes  are  never, 
in  practice,  perfectly  indistinguishable  ;  there  are 
always  well-marked  cases  at  the  opposite  ends  of 
the  scale,  and  the  range  of  these  nearly  always 
extends  a  long  way  towards  the  middle  region  ;  up 
to  fifteen  or  later,  one  remains  a  boy  ;  after  twenty- 
five  or  earlier,  one  has  already  become  a  man. 
Quite  commonly  we  admit  the  difficulty  of  draw- 
ing a  given  line,  and  then  proceed  to  use  the  dis- 
tinction as  if  it  were  perfectly  firm  and  clear.  This 
is,  indeed,  a  leading  fact  about  the  manner  in  which 
we  are  all  in  the  habit  of  dealing  with  loose  dis- 
tinctions ;  their  partial  failure  in  applicability  does 
not,  though  recognised,  entirely  destroy  their  value. 
The  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  for 


I06  DISTINCTION 


instance,  or  true  andfa/se,  or  attractive  and  repul- 
sive, does  not  as  a  matter  of  fact  become  entirely 
meaningless  as  soon  as  we  admit  that  its  applica- 
tion is  not  perfectly  clear.  The  extent  of  the  doubt- 
ful margin  or  borderland  varies  a  little  in  various 
cases — that  between  wise  and  unwise,  for  instance, 
is  larger  than  that  between  straight  and  crooked — 
now  and  then  becoming  perhaps  slightly  trouble- 
some ;  but  as  a  rule  the  extent  of  the  borderland  is 
as  nothing,  compared  with  that  of  the  well-marked 
cases,  and  to  pay  much  attention  with  the  bare  fact  of 
its  existence  is  a  waste  of  time.1  At  any  rate,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  people  are  often  content  to  use  words 
with  some  vagueness,  and  are  impatient  with  any 
attempts  to  make  them  definite  or  to  enquire  very 
closely  into  the  meaning  of  what  is  said.  Pedantry, 
quibbling,  casuistry,  and  other  uncomplimentary 

1  The  notice  that  common-sense  will  accord  to  a  given  border- 
land appears  to  depend  on  various  accidental  conditions  ;  in  some 
cases  the  difficulty  is  freely  recognised  and  deplored  ;  in  others  the 
theoretical  difficulty  is  admitted,  but  its  practical  importance  is 
denied — e.g.  it  is  useful  to  speak  of  islands  and  continents  though 
Australia  is  insular  and  continental  at  once  ;  and  no  one  thinks 
it  worth  while  to  insist  on  the  difficulty  of  finding  the  two  ends  of 
a  river.  In  other  cases,  again,  we  are  rather  afraid  to  make  the 
admission,  or  think  it  well  for  certain  purposes,  or  certain  people, 
to  put  the  borderland  out  of  sight.  For  example,  a  reformed 
drunkard  may  wisely  decline  altogether  to  speculate  as  to  the  line 
between  moderate  and  immoderate  drinking  ;  and  the  need  for 
action  imposes  on  everybody  the  duty  of  suppressing  even  well- 
founded  casuistry  on  occasion. 


THE  EFFECTS   OF  AMBIGUITY          107 

names,  are  commonly  given  to  the  practice  of  trying 
to  force  a  speaker  to  define  his  words  ;  and  the 
claim  is  widely  made  that,  in  certain  subjects  at 
least — poetry  and  religion,  for  example — the  aim 
at  definiteness  may  very  well  be  worse  than  merely 
pedantic  and  trivial.  Meaning  depends,  according 
to  this  view,  not  on  absolutely  sharp  distinction, 
but  on  the  smallness  or  general  unimportance  of 
the  borderland  cases ;  some  words  suffer  much, 
but  most  words  hardly  at  all,  from  defect  of  mean- 
ing through  lack  of  clear  definition. 

On  the  other  side,  it  is  freely  admitted  that  m 
a  certain  sense  we  can  speak  of  the  varying  extent 
of  borderland,  and  that  even  where  the  borderland 
is  a  large  one  there  are  often  sound  practical  rea- 
sons for  determining  not  to  see  it.  But  then,  we 
are  reminded,  in  doing  so  we  are  shutting  our 
eyes,  however  wisely,  to  a  piece  of  admitted  truth  ; 
and  the  consequences  of  this  neglected  truth  are 
there  to  be  drawn,  and  cannot  in  fact  be  avoided, 
even  if  we  personally  prefer  to  hide  our  heads  in 
the  sand.  And  after  all,  these  stricter  consequences 
may  be  admitted,  and  then  forbidden  to  interfere 
with  practice.  It  is  open  to  us,  avhen  once  we 
know  what  they  are,  to  make  as  much  or  as  little 
use  of  them  as  we  choose  ;  but  lest  there  be  any 
mistake  as  to  what  they  actually  are,  it  seems 


io8  DISTINCTION 


worth  while  just  once  to  set  them  down  as  clearly 
as  we  can. 

Perhaps  the  most  useful  analogy  in  the  light  of 
which  to  see  the  strict  dependence  of  meaning  on 
sharp  distinction  is  one  that  was  used  by  Mill  in 
an  early  chapter  of  his  Logic — the  story  in  the 
'  Arabian  Nights '  of  the  chalk-mark  on  the  door- 
posts. If  you  mark  one  doorpost  so  as  to  signify 
'  This  is  the  house,'  the  meaning  of  the  mark  is 
clear,  but  if  only  a  single  other  doorpost  be  marked 
in  the  same  way  the  sign  becomes  ambiguous.' 
The  mark  is  then  false  in  a  single  case  and  there- 
fore fallible  altogether ;  it  may  mislead  us,  and  the 
most  misleading  sign  can  do  no  more.  This 
analogy  provides  room  also  for  the  first,  and  more 
common-sense,  of  the  two  views  given  above  ;  for 
common-sense  would  certainly  call  the  mark  still 
more  ambiguous  if  instead  of  only  one  house  fifty 
or  a  hundred  others  were  chalked. 

What  corresponds  to  the  mark  is  the  name — for 
example,  '  A.'  What  corresponds  to  the  meaning 
of  the  mark  is  the  name's  connotation — for  example, 
*  C.'  Common-sense  insists  that  where  only  a  com- 
paratively smaJl  proportion  of  things  named  A  are 
in  fact  not  C,  the  name  A  is  less  ambiguous  than 
where  the  proportion  is  larger ;  and  that,  some- 
where on  the  scale, '  less '  ambiguity  shades  off  into 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  AMBIGUITY  109 

'  practically  none '  ;  so  that,  for  instance,  we  can 
use  words  like  straight  and  crooked  without  any 
harm  at  all,  and  even  words  like  wise  and  foolish 
with  meaning  enough  to  satisfy  everyone  who  is 
not  a  mere  obstructive  in  practical  matters.  The 
'  unpractical '  view,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  in 
strictness  the  gap  between  certainty  and  uncer- 
tainty is  wider  than  between  an  even  chance  and 
any  amount  of  odds.  Though  probability  admits 
of  degrees,  possibility  does  not ;  so  that,  once 
admit  the  smallest  uncertainty  in  drawing  the  line, 
and  any  actual  thing  or  case  called  A  may  really 
deserve  rather  to  be  called  non-A.  A  word  that 
is  ever  so  slightly  ambiguous  may  deceive  an 
audience,  and  what  worse  harm  can  be  done  by 
the  most  equivocal  word  in  the  language  ? 

Or,  to  put  the  matter  in  another  way,  unless 
the  assertion  of  the  predicate  A  carries  with  it  in 
all  cases,  without  exception,  the  denial  of  the  pre- 
dicate non-A,  how  are  we  to  know  whether  it  does 
so  in  the  particular  case  that  comes  before  us  ?  The 
particular  case  in  question  may  be  the  one  excep- 
tion out  of  millions,  unless  we  have  some  reason 
(other  than  the  mere  number  of  the  non-excep- 
tional cases)  to  suppose  the  contrary.  If  mere 
numerical  probability  could  make  us  certain,  then 
it  is  certain  that  no  particular  railway  accident  will 


i  io  DISTINCTION 


ever  occur,  no  lottery-ticket  ever  win  a  prize,  and 
no  particular  bullet  fired  in  battle  ever  hit  a  parti- 
cular soldier  among  the  enemy.  Perhaps  these 
are  '  practical  certainties '  ?  And  of  course  if 
practical  certainty  means  a  kind  of  certainty  that 
is  daily  proved  mistaken  in  practice,  no  more  can 
be  said,  except  that  such  mistakes  of  judgment  are 
exactly  the  fault  we  were  asking  how  to  avoid. 

Unpractical  as  this  stricter  view  may  appear, 
and  liable,  as  it  doubtless  is,  to  become  really  un- 
practical when  wrongly  applied,  it  contains  at  least 
some  truth  that  is  worthy  of  notice.  It  is  clear 
that  the  names  A  and  non-A  must  not  be  regarded 
as  indistinct,  if  they  are  to  have  a  meaning.  So 
long  as  the  line  is  supposed  to  be  vague,  our  con- 
fidence in  using  either  of  the  contrasted  names  as 
a  predicate  halts  in  every  case  until  some  special 
justification  is  provided.  Otherwise  there  is  a  leak, 
however  small  and  unnoticed,  which  may  bring 
down  the  meaning  of  our  assertion  like  a  pricked 
balloon.  If  the  distinction  is  thought  of  as  at  all 
inapplicable — if  it  be  supposed  that  any  cases 
belong  to  a  doubtful  borderland — how  do  we  know 
that  the  case  in  question  is  not  one  of  them  ?  The 
only  general  grounds,  as  distinguished  from  special 
grounds,  for  this  security  are  to  be  found  in  the 
assumption  that  no  borderland  cases  exist.  In 


THE  EFFECTS   OF  AMBIGUITY  in 

the  absence  of  this  assumption,  and  also  of  special 
reasons  for  excepting  the  given  case,  our  confidence 
is  seen  to  be  pretentious  and  unsound.  We  must, 
therefore,  somehow  agree  with  our  audience  either 
that  the  distinction  is  strictly  applicable,  or  else 
that  the  case  in  question  is  not  within  the  doubtful 
margin. 

Our  plan  of  reconciling  the  practical  and  the 
theoretical  views  will  best  be  understood  in  the 
light  of  later  chapters,  but  already  we  may  see  the 
use  of  recognising  the  fact  that  meaning  depends 
on  absolutely  sharp  distinction.  It  is  not  a  merely 
unpractical  and  obstructive  truth,  deserving  to  be 
forgotten  altogether  as  soon  as  it  has  once  been 
grudgingly  admitted.  It  helps  us  to  correct  the 
natural  error  of  supposing  that  the  smallness  of 
extent  of  borderland  is  what  makes  a  meaning 
clear,  since  it  helps  us  to  see  that  extent  of  border- 
land does  not  by  itself  settle  the  matter,  but  is  only 
one  among  other  conditions  tending  to  its  settle- 
ment in  a  given  case.  The  borderland  between 
sinned  against  and  sinning  is  a  very  small  one — 
the  notions  are  not  very  liable  to  become  ambiguous 
— and  yet  sometimes  their  meaning  is  lost  through 
overlapping  ;  the  borderland  between  good  and  evil 
is  a  very  large  one,  and  yet  these  words  are  often 
clearly  understood.  Extent  of  borderland  is  thus 


ii2  DISTINCTION 


not  by  itself  the  decisive  cause  of  loss  of  meaning, 
but  only  of  liability  to  such  loss.  Where  the 
borderland  is  large,  ambiguity  is  of  course  more 
likely  than  where  it  is  small,  but  where  the  appli- 
cation of  a  word  is  actually  doubtful  the  doubt 
cannot  be  removed  by  reference  to  the  fewness 
of  the  doubtful  cases  ;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
wherever  an  '  ambiguity '  does  not  matter,  there  no 
real  ambiguity  exists.  In  this  sense,  therefore,  it 
may  be  said  that  meaning  does  stand  or  fall  with 
absolutely  sharp  distinction.  It  does  not  require 
that  Nature  shall  be  discontinuous,  but  only  that  its 
continuity  shall  be  by  agreement  forgotten  at 
times.  Meaning  depends  on  sharpness  of  distinc- 
tion, but  pretended  sharpness  will  serve  the  purpose 
of  making  a  meaning  just  as  well  as  if  the  sharpness 
were  '  real '  in  any  higher  sense.  Meaning  requires 
agreement,  but  agreement  does  not  depend  upon 
knowledge  of  fact. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   DEMAND   FOR   STRICT   DEFINITION 

CRITICISM  of  the  soundness  of  a  judgment  is  so 
nearly  allied  to  the  accusation  of  vagueness  or 
ambiguity,  that  it  may  always  be  expressed  in  the 
form  of  a  demand  for  a  definition,  and  is  often 
most  effectively  so  expressed.  The  cases  where  it 
is  least  easy,  or  least  natural,  for  criticism  to  take 
this  form  are  where  there  is  least  doubt  as  to  how 
the  facts  should  be  named,  and  since  in  a  great 
many  cases  such  doubt  hardly  exists  at  all,  or,  at 
any  rate,  is  of  too  cautious  and  '  theoretical '  a  kind 
to  be  noticed  by  practical  men,  there  is  considerable 
difficulty  in  showing,  in  any  easy  and  yet  convinc- 
ing way,  the  complete  extent  of  the  truth  that  all 
criticism  of  judgment  is  criticism  of  distinction.1 

But  we  may  here  be  content  with  a  less  ex- 
tensive view.     Our  special  object,  in  this  and  the 
preceding  chapter,  is  to  discover  exactly  the  nature 
of  the  harm  that  is  actually  caused  by  ambiguity. 
1  See  p.  193. 

I 


114  DISTINCTION 


Our  attention  is  thus  directed  away  from  the  cases 
where  there  is  least  doubt  as  to  the  applicability  of 
a  name,  and  attracted  towards  the  cases  where  such 
doubt  becomes  really  and  practically  troublesome. 
These,  as  already  said,  are  most  easily  found  in 
controversy.  And  since  the  disputes  that  turn 
upon  fact l  are  short-lived  and  uncontroversial  when 
compared  with  those  which  turn  upon  theory  (or 
ideas,  or  ways  of  dressing  up  fact  in  language),  it 
follows  that  the  more  we  fix  attention  on  con- 
troversy, and  especially  on  the  less  easily  settled 
matters  of  controversy,  the  better  chance  we  shall 
have  of  seeing  the  actual  manner  in  which  ambi- 
guity helps  to  obscure  our  judgment 

Sophists  and  rhetoricians  early  discovered  that 
whoever  puts  forward  any  assertion  lays  himself 
thereby  open  to  troublesome  questions  as  to  the 
exact  meaning  of  his  words.  In  the  time  of 
Socrates  this  controversial  weapon  was,  no  doubt, 
wielded  more  freely  and  eagerly  than  is  the  custom 
to-day  among  those  who  debate  with  telling  effect ; 
yet,  less  simple  in  manner,  and  restricted  to  fewer 
and  rather  more  carefully  chosen  occasions,  the 
'  Socratic  method  '  is  in  truth  as  powerful  now  as  it 
ever  was.  In  essence,  this  plan  of  attack  consists 

1  So  far  as  '  fact '  can  be  distinguished  at  all  from  '  theory. '   See 
P.  154- 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION   115 

in  putting  innocent-looking  questions  to  the 
assertor,  and  so  leading  him  step  by  step  into  a 
tangle  of  meanings  and  of  inconsistent  assertions. 
You  begin  by  humbly  sitting  at  his  feet,  and 
asking  for  instruction,  and  you  end  by  driving  him 
into  such  a  position  that,  if  he  cares  even  to  save 
appearances,  he  must  withdraw  his  claim  to  possess 
the  requisite  knowledge.  The  strength  of  this 
method  depends  partly  upon  the  real  difficulties 
that  so  often  lie  in  the  way  of  getting  our  mean- 
ings clear  and  our  proofs  convincing,  but  also 
partly  upon  the  extreme  plausibility  of  the  humble 
demand  for  enlightenment  Since  assertion  as 
such  professes  to  be  instructive,  the  assertor  can 
hardly  be  surprised  if  the  audience  expect  him  to 
know  what  he  means  himself.  Otherwise  there  is 
an  air  of  pretence  about  his  claim  to  teach  us,  and 
pretence  unmasked  is  fatal  to  the  prestige  of  a 
teacher.  Nor  can  he  escape  even  by  silence  very 
successfully.  To  assert  and  yet  to  refuse  to 
explain  his  meaning,  to  impart  an  oracular 
message  and  there  stop  short,  is  a  form  of  an- 
nouncement that,  however  solemnly,  beautifully, 
or  lightly  put  forward,  can  only  be  imposing  in 
face  of  a  timorous  kind  of  criticism.  The  more 
careful  the  investigation,  or  the  more  the  audience 
is  really  interested  in  discerning  in  what  respects 


ii6  DISTINCTION 


the  assertion  is  true  and  false,  the  closer  must 
naturally  be  the  enquiry  into  meaning,  and  hence 
to  press  for  exact  definition  is  nearly  always  an 
easy  and  telling  controversial  trick,1  full  of  destruc- 
tive insinuations,  which  may  be  made  with  an  air 
of  the  utmost  innocence,  as  arising  from  the  honest 
wish  to  be  enlightened.  A  general  name  which 
on  enquiry  means  nothing  particular,  or  a  general 
assertion  which  on  enquiry  turns  out  to  have  no 
precise  application  to  particular  cases,  is  easily 
made  to  look  foolish.  And  doubts  as  to  precise 
application  do  not  depend  for  their  strength  upon 
the  number  of  doubtful  cases  that  can  be  found, 
but  upon  their  nature.  Any  one  such  case  stands 
for  a  class  of  cases,  just  in  the  same  way  as  a  single 
figure  illustrates  a  general  proposition  in  Euclid. 

1  A  trick,  but  not  necessarily  unfair  ;  useful  certainly  as  against 
over-pretentious  assertion  in  all  its  forms,  and  specially  against  the 
'  oracular '  attempt  to  throw  upon  the  audience  the  burden  of 
reconciling  contradictory  statements.  The  opposite  doctrine,  en- 
forced so  pertinaciously  by  Socrates,  was  that  the  assertor  and  not  his 
audience — he  who  pretends  to  instruct  and  not  he  who  wishes  to  be 
instructed—  is  the  proper  person  to  effect  whatever  reconciliation  is 
possible  ;  and  that  the  higher  the  assertor's  authority,  or  the  bolder 
his  profession  of  knowledge,  the  heavier  lies  on  him  the  obligation 
to  make  his  meaning  clear.  Socrates  felt  that  where  an  assertor 
put  forward  two  inconsistent  statements  he  may  be  rightly  called 
upon  to  choose  one  horn  of  the  dilemma.  The  utmost  freedom  of 
choice  may  be  given  to  him,  but  until  he  chooses  one  or  the  other 
definitely  the  audience  have  no  real  assertion  before  them,  and  he 
might  as  well  have  left  the  words  unsaid. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION   117 

Even  a  single  doubtful  case  may  thus  upset  an 
assertor's  pretensions.  He  talks  about  justice,  let 
us  say,  or  calls  an  action  unjust ;  and,  in  order  to 
discover  exactly  his  reasons  for  applying  the  term, 
we  ask  him  how  he  would  apply  it  in  some  other 
case  where  (it  seems  to  us)  justice  and  injustice 
are  subtly  interwoven.  We  find  that  there,  at  any 
rate,  he  feels  the  same  difficulty  as  ourselves.  The 
distinguishing  marks  of  justice,  therefore,  as  the 
assertor  himself  conceives  them,  are  hazy  on  occa- 
sion ;  and  we  naturally  want  to  know  what  is  the 
real  extent  of  these  occasions.  For  all  we  can  say, 
and  for  all  the  assertor  has  yet  been  able  to  show 
us,  they  may  include  the  case  about  which  he  is  so 
confident.  If  so,  it  does  not  seem  to  matter  very 
much  whether  we  assent  to  his  proposition  or 
not.  Where  is  the  sense  of  caring  which  of  two 
contradictory  epithets  is  chosen,  in  the  absence 
of  intelligible  reasons  for  choosing  between  them 
clearly  ? 

Perhaps  the  assertor  reminds  us  that  though 
A  and  non-A  are  always  found  entangled,  still  we 
can  often  find  a  preponderance  of  one  or  the  other, 
and  can  name  the  case  accordingly.  There  are 
heroes,  for  instance,  though  no  man  is  purely 
heroic.  But  this  defence  only  changes  slightly  the 
form  of  attack,  if  the  critic  is  bent  on  pressing  the 


ii8  DISTINCTION 


question.  When  the  assertor  pretends  to  have 
struck  a  balance  fairly,  the  enquiry  after  meaning 
becomes  a  demand  to  see  the  items  of  the  account ; 
and  their  very  existence  as  balance-sheet  items 
depends  on  a  clear  separation  of  A  from  non-A. 
An  account  where  the  debit  and  credit  entries  are 
liable  to  be  mistaken  for  one  another,  can  hardly 
claim  to  perform  its  function  properly. 

Apart  from  its  insinuations,  the  controversial 
enquiry  after  the  exact  definition  of  a  word  puts  a 
direct  question  to  the  assertor  as  to  the  meaning 
which  he  intends  that  word  to  bear  in  some 
particular  assertion.  The  critic  ostensibly  asks  to 
be  allowed  to  come  to  some  agreement  with  the 
assertor  as  to  what  is  really  meant ;  in  the  absence 
of  such  agreement  (he  complains,  in  effect)  he  can 
neither  test  the  assertion  by  applying  it  to  particu- 
lar cases,  nor  make  use  of  it  even  if  he  admits  its 
truth.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  the  direct  force  of  the 
enquiry.  It  is  not  primarily  a  question  either  of 
the  common  acceptation  of  the  word  whose  defini- 
tion is  asked  for,  or  of  the  meaning  which  is  most 
convenient  or  best  on  the  whole,  but  of  what  some 
one  particular  assertion,  as  made  by  some  one 
person  and  at  some  particular  time,  is  intended  to 
mean.  We  shall  see  further  on  l  how  it  is  that  the 

1  Pp.  193-199- 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION    119 

insinuations  of  the  Socratic  enquiry  are  the  same 
as  those  of  the  demand  for  proof.  At  present  the 
point  to  notice  is  the  result  of  ambiguity — its  effect 
upon  the  meaning  of  an  assertion.  Some  account 
of  this  was  given  in  general  terms  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  but  now  it  remains  for  us,  with  the  help  of 
instances  showing  the  use  of  this  method,  to  see 
the  matter  in  a  more  concrete  way. 

The  older  and  simpler  examples — plenty  of 
which  are  to  be  found  in  Plato's  Dialogues — are 
not  very  good  for  our  purpose.  They  are  apt  to 
seem  rather  too  academical,  too  little  in  touch  with 
the  puzzles  that  really  trouble  us.  But  it  is  not 
very  difficult  to  recognise  the  old  method  in  some 
of  its  modern  disguises,  and  the  form  of  it  which 
seems  most  apt  for  our  present  purpose  of  illustra- 
tion occurs  so  frequently,  even  outside  philosophy, 
that  it  must  be  familiar  to  everyone. 

When  I  make  a  sweeping  assertion  which  may, 
as  the  phrase  runs,  mean  anything  or  nothing,  am 
I  under  an  obligation  to  make  its  meaning  clear  ? 
Granting  that  by  an  obligation  is  here  meant  no 
more  than  that  the  assertion  will  otherwise  fail  to 
carry  a  meaning  to  the  audience,  it  seems  at  first 
obvious  enough  that  I  am  so  obliged.  And  yet 
there  are  many  sweeping  assertions,  true  enough 
to  be  useful,  which,  if  treated  strictly  by  this 


120  DISTINCTION 


method,  can  be  made  to  seem  foolish  or  false.  An 
instance,  or  an  applicable  definition,  is  asked  for, 
and  the  assertor  fails  to  supply  one ;  upon  which 
the  critic  more  or  less  modestly  assumes  the  air  of 
having  exposed  a  fraud.  As  every  reader  will 
know  by  his  own  experience,  this  assumption  is 
sometimes  unjust ;  either  the  instances,  though 
many  in  number,  have  simply  escaped  from  a 
memory  stored  with  more  valuable  deposits,  or 
— and  this  is  a  still  more  vexatious  occasion — there 
is  in  the  nature  of  the  case  some  reason  why  no 
quite  satisfactory  instance,  no  perfectly  applicable 
definition,  is  ever  likely  to  be  found. 

Among  the  typical  occasions  of  this  latter 
difficulty  are  those  where  a  '  tendency  '  is  asserted, 
as  happens  largely  throughout  all  science,  and 
perhaps  most  strikingly  in  the  science  of  eco- 
nomics. There  was  a  time,  which  ended  some 
twenty  years  ago,  when  most  economists  conceived 
it  to  be  a  part  of  their  duty  to  apply  the  econom- 
ist's '  laws'  directly  in  the  solution  of  political  and 
social  problems.  They  were  inclined  to  assume, 
for  instance,  that  obstacles  to  freedom  of  trade,  or 
freedom  of  contract,  were  in  all  cases  simply  to  be 
condemned  ;  and  they  supposed  that  the  notion  of 
a  '  wage  fund  '  could  be  used  to  limit  all  hopes  of 
obtaining  better  wages,  otherwise  than  by  a  decrease 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION    121 

in  the  number  of  labourers.  By  thus  over-simpli- 
fying the  practical  problems,  and  by  adopting  a 
tone  of  somewhat  impatient  dogmatism  in  conse- 
quence, they  succeeded  in  bringing  the  science 
into  a  state  of  discredit  among  practical  men,  from 
which  it  has  hardly  yet  recovered,  although  a  great 
deal  of  care  has  lately  been  taken  by  economists  to 
reduce  the  claim  which  is  made  by  the  economical 
laws.  These  laws  are  statements  of  tendency,  we 
are  now  very  often  reminded,  not  rules  of  action, 
nor  even  uncounteracted  uniformities  in  Nature. 
In  other  words,  they  are  Abstract  laws,  and  as  such 
they  are  '  almost  never  by  themselves  decisive.' 
Before  arriving  at  a  conclusion  in  actual  cases,  we 
require  to  know  whether,  in  the  given  case,  the 
abstract  tendencies  are  anyhow  counteracted.1 

That  is,  in  fact,  the  essential  difference  between 
an  abstract  law  and  a  law  (i.e.  a  statement  of  uni- 
formity) which  is  other  than  abstract :  the  former 


1  In  this  connection  it  may  be  noticed  that  in  economics  the 
definitions  used  are  very  commonly  '  inapplicable '  ones,  much  to 
the  discomfort  of  the  student  who  prepares  to  answer  the  question 
whether  so  and  so  is  wealth  or  not,  or  which  of  some  given  list  of 
things  are  capital.  Sometimes  there  is  a  reference  to  intention  or 
expectation,  as  when  capital  is  defined  as  that  part  of  a  man's  stock 
which  he  expects  to  afford  him  a  revenue  ;  sometimes  there  is  a 
reference  to  results  without  fixing  a  limit  of  time,  as  when  pro- 
ductive labour  is  defined  as  labour  which  increases  the  sum  of  human 
wealth. 


122  DISTINCTION 


may  be  universal  in  spite  of  effectual  counteracting 
causes,  the  latter  ceases  to  be  universal  if  a  single 
exception  can  be  found  ;  so  that  an  abstract  law 
may  be  true  in  spite  of  apparent  failures  in  its 
verification.  And  the  practical  difficulty  hence 
arising  is  that  of  testing  the  truth  of  the  law,  and 
of  seeing  how  far  it  is  really  applicable  in  actual 
cases.  Like  any  universal  assertion — like  '  all  men 
are  fallible,'  for  example — an  abstract  universal 
appears  to  state  the  conditions  of  an  inference,  and 
to  apply  it  at  all  is  to  interpret  it  as  doing  so ;  but, 
unlike  the  strict  universal,  it  states  the  conditions 
of  the  inference  so  vaguely  that  we  cannot  in 
practice  apply  it  with  perfect  confidence — with  such 
confidence,  for  instance,  as  in  the  inference  from 
human  nature  to  fallibility.  To  say  that  where 
we  find  A  we  may  infer  C,  when  we  only  mean 
that  in  the  absence  of  counteracting  circumstances, 
or  '  other  things  equal,'  the  inference  holds  good, 
is  to  state  the  conditions  of  the  inference  vaguely. 
The  condition  named  A  is  not,  in  such  a  case,  the 
only  relevant  one ;  so  that  the  conditions  as  a 
whole  are  only  described  roughly  and  incompletely 
by  such  a  name.  To  make  the  statement  literally 
true  we  should  have  to  introduce  further  limitations 
or  qualifications — as,  for  instance,  '  A,  when  B  is 
present  (or  absent) ' — some  details  which  should 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION   123 

define  the  requisite  conditions  more  closely.  And 
the  progress  of  science  always  shows  itself  in  some 
increase  in  our  power  of  specifying  more  completely 
the  essential  conditions  of  inference  in  given  cases. 
A  scientific  law  is  revised  and  improved  so  far  as 
we  learn  to  bind  up  its  exceptions  along  with  the 
general  statement.  For  instance,  a  red  sky  at 
night  means  a  fine  day  to-morrow — usually,  but 
not  always  ;  if  we  knew  more  of  the  causes  at 
work,  more  of  the  reasons  for  the  rule  and  its 
exceptions,  we  should  be  able  to  specify  more 
distinctly  the  trustworthy  signs  of  the  coming 
weather. 

Take,  for  example,  the  assertion  that  '  popula- 
tion tends  to  outrun  subsistence,'  and  remember 
the  treatment  it  has  actually  received  at  the  hands 
of  some  of  its  opponents.1  It  does  not  concern  us 
here  to  ask  whether  in  this  or  that  case  the  critics 
are  right  or  wrong,  but  only  to  notice  why  they 
think  they  are  right.  None  of  them,  I  believe, 
deny  that  in  a  certain  abstract  and  hypothetical 
sense  the  law  is  true  ;  what  they  seek  to  deny  is 
its  practical  value,  its  utility  in  enabling  us  to 
foresee  concrete  events.  They  take  an  extended 
view  of  the  facts  of  the  world,  and  find  that  the 

1  E.g. ,  Mr.  Henry  George  in  Progress  and  Poverty ;  or,  for  a 
more  sober  attack,  Prof.  Rickards  in  Population  and  Capital. 


124  DISTINCTION 


abstract  tendency  of  population  to  outrun  sub- 
sistence has,  and  has  always  had,  so  many  forces 
actually  opposed  to  it  that  somehow  it  has  never 
yet  caused  serious  trouble,  except  locally  and  in 
an  accidental  way.1  Hence,  they  suggest,  it  stands 
on  much  the  same  footing  as  the  equally  undeni- 
able abstract  tendency  of  men  to  live  for  ever  ;  the 
result,  in  both  cases,  is  '  habitually  prevented  from 
occurring,'  and  for  practical  purposes  we  want  to 
know  rather  what  is  likely  to  occur. 

Another  example  of  the  demand  for  an  applic- 
able definition  may  be  found  in  Cairnes's  objection2 
to  Jevons's  (and  Say's)  definition  of  utility.  Here 
Cairnes  confesses  himself 'wholly  unable  to  conceive 
how  anything  amounting  to  a  real  explanation  can 
be  extracted  from  a  proposition  which,'  as  he  sharply 
puts  it,  '  amounts  to  this  and  no  more — that  value 
depends  upon  utility,  and  that  utility  is  whatever 
affects  value.'  The  name  '  utility,'  he  further 
explains,  is  here  given  to  the  aggregate  of  unknown 
conditions  which  determine  the  phenomenon,  and 
then  the  phenomenon  is  stated  to  depend  upon 
what  this  name  stands  for.  '  Suppose,  instead  of 

1  '  The  globe,'  says  Mr.  George,  '  may  be  surveyed  and  history 
may  be  reviewed  in  vain  for  any  instance  of  a  considerable  country 
in  which  pressure  and  want  can  be  fairly  attributed  to  the  pressure 
of  an  increasing  population. ' 

Leading  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  pp.  17-21. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION    125 

"  utility,"  we  call  the  unknown  conditions  x,  we 
might  then  say  that  value  was  determined  by  x ; 
and  the  proposition  would  be  precisely  as  true,  and, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  as  instructive,  as  Mr.  Jevons's 
doctrine.  In  either  case  the  information  conveyed 
would  be  that  value  was  determined  by  the  condi- 
tions which  determine  it,  an  announcement  the 
importance  of  which  ...  I  must  own  myself 
unable  to  discern.' ! 

There  are  certain  people,  and  the  late  Professor 
Cairnes  was  one  of  them,2  whose  vision  is  keen  in 
detecting  the  fault  called  '  truism.'  And  in  fact  such 
keenness,  just  or  unjust,  is  extremely  useful  in  con- 
troversy ;  the  accusation  so  brought  is  one  of  the 
most  effective  forms  that  the  old  Socratic  method 
takes  in  modern  times.  We  frequently  meet  with 
examples  of  it  in  common  life — for  instance,  where 
some  general  rule  is  repeated  to  us  when  our 
enquiry  really  concerns  the  exceptions  to  that 
general  rule.  Maxims  of  advice  are  especially 
liable  to  be  thus  received,  to  be  classed  as  '  copy- 

1  It  is  perhaps  worth  noticing  that  the  use  of  this  definition  of 
utility  may  conceivably  be  justified  on  other  grounds  than  as  an  '  an- 
nouncement '  of  fact  at  all.     If  so,  Cairnes's  objection  would  fall  as 
flat  as  the  objection  sometimes  brought  against  a  theory  that  as  a 
dogma  it  will  not  stand.     See  p.  187. 

2  See,  for  instance,  Leading  Principles,   pp.   29  note,  51,  79, 

IO2,    151. 


126  DISTINCTION 


book  wisdom  '  ;  the  adviser  seems  either  himself  to 
lack  insight  into  the  real  difficulty  of  the  case,  or 
to  underrate  our  powers  of  seeing  it.  The  stand- 
ing conflict  between  the  world's  opinion  and  that 
of  the  individual  may  in  every  case  be  resolved 
into  a  charge  of  stating  truisms,  a  charge  rightly 
or  wrongly  brought  by  the  individual  against  some 
piece  of  advice.  Worldly  maxims,  like  proverbs, 
are  conceived  to  fit  the  average,  rather  than  the 
special,  case  ;  the  individual  may  admit  the  world 
to  be  '  wise '  without  supposing  it  to  be  infallible. 
Most  of  the  instances  of  this  conflict  provide,  indeed, 
such  warmly  disputed  matter  that  it  is  hardly  safe 
to  use  them  for  illustration,  but  there  are  a  few 
instances  where  the  value  of  the  world's  opinion 
can  be  definitely  tested  in  a  short  time  ;  thus,  the 
market  price  of  investments  is  a  case  in  point. 
The  price  of  a  given  stock  at  a  given  time  is  the 
closest  measure  we  can  get  of  the  world's  opinion 
as  to  its  present  value,  and  is  a  far  closer  measure, 
by  the  way,  than  we  ever  get  of  the  world's  opinion 
on  any  subject  where  quantities  are  not  concerned 
or  where  the  interest  in  the  question  is  rather  pro- 
fessed than  real.  Yet  to  a  given  individual  the 
market  price  may  often  rightly  seem  too  high  or 
too  low.  Consider  the  feelings  of  such  an  investor 
when  solemnly  told  that  '  the  higher  the  interest 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION    127 

the  greater  is  the  risk.'  The  intelligent  investor 
so  advised  is  exactly  in  the  position  of  the  in- 
dividual to  whom  a  worldly  maxim  is  given  in  a 
case  which  to  him  seems  to  depart  importantly 
from  the  average.  The  maxim  is  well  known 
to  him,  and  he  firmly  believes  in  its  general  value, 
but  in  the  special  case  it  has  become  irrelevant  to 
his  own  enquiry.  His  own  enquiry  is  not  '  what  is 
the  general  rule,'  but  '  does  this  case  belong  to  the 
admitted  general  rule  or  to  its  exceptions '  ;  and 
so  to  him  the  mere  re-assertion  of  the  rule  has  no 
relevance,  has  absolutely  no  meaning  in  regard  to 
the  point  at  issue. 

The  charge  of  stating  a  truism  occurs,  of  course, 
chiefly  in  connection  with  very  general  state- 
ments, for  the  more  a  statement  aims  at  compre- 
hensiveness, the  more  likely  it  is  to  be  either  a 
truism  or  else  untrue.  This  dilemma  is,  therefore, 
a  common  one  in  philosophy,  where  the  aim  at 
comprehensiveness  is  a  source  of  such  endless 
trouble.  For  instance,  the  axiom  as  to  the  uni- 
formity of  causation  is  difficult  to  state  in  any  way 
which  shall  avoid  the  horns  of  this  dilemma.  That 
the  same  cause  is  invariably  followed  by  the  same 
effect  is  perfectly  true,  if  we  admit  that  we  are 
liable  to  be  misled  in  calling  two  actual  events '  the 
same '  before  we  have  seen  their  results,  and  that 


128  DISTINCTION 


therefore  we  cannot  use  the  axiom  with  perfect 
confidence  to  predict  this  or  that  event  in  the  con- 
crete ;  but  false  if  we  mean  that  events  approxi- 
mately the  same  (or  that  seem  the  same  on  the 
surface)  will  always  be  followed  by  approximately 
the  same  consequent  events.  Every  mistaken 
prediction  that  we  make  is  due  to  our  believing  too 
easily  in  the  applicability  of  this  axiom  in  its  true 
form,  or  in  its  truth  when  stated  in  its  applicable 
form.1  And  Mill's  celebrated 'Inductive  Canons'2 
exemplify  the  results  of  confusion  on  this  point. 
Every  one  of  these  is  made  true,  and  yet  practically 
inefficient  for  prediction,  by  the  presence  of  an  '  if.' 
'  If  only  one  circumstance  has  varied/  says  Mill, 
'  that  one  is  the  cause  of  whatever  further  variation 
occurs.'  Of  course  it  is,  but  how  are  we  in  practice 
to  be  sure  that  only  one  circumstance  has  varied  ? 
And,  to  begin  with,  what  are  the  limits  of  a '  single 
circumstance  '  ?  The  real  difficulty  in  induction, 
the  problem  how  to  observe  the  relevant  facts 
correctly,  is  just  the  problem  that  Mill's  canons 

1  I  do  not  mean  that  this  axiom  is  useless  altogether  ;  only  that 
it  is  useless  for  prediction  in  actual  cases.     There  is  a  negative  form 
of  it  which  may  be  of  considerable  use  in  explanation,  after  the 
event,  viz.  '  Non-uniformity  in  the  consequent  points  to  non-uni- 
formity  in   the  antecedents,'   or   '  When  we  find  two  consequent 
events  at  all  different  from  each  other,  we  may  be  sure  that  there 
was  some  difference  in  their  antecedents.' 

2  See  Appendix,  p.  261. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  STRICT  DEFINITION   129 


suppose  to  be  previously  solved.  Regarded  as 
practical  guides,  therefore,  their  effect  is  to  direct 
our  attention  away  from  the  practical  difficulty, 
to  minimise  that  and  make  it  appear  too  simple. 
Their  wisdom  is  undeniable,  but  it  is  the  kind  of 
wisdom  that  becomes  unmistakable  only  after  the 
event. 

These  examples,  I   hope,  will  be  sufficient  to 
show  the  force  of  the  complaint  that  an  assertion 
is  ambiguous  and  so  loses  its  meaning  entirely.     A 
truth    must   be   capable   of    concrete   application 
somehow,  if  it  is  either  to  be  used  at  all  or  tested 
in  the  light  of  apparent  exceptions.     A  truth  that 
we  can  neither   test   nor   apply  in  practice  lacks 
meaning   as   much  as  if  it  were  in  an  unknown 
tongue.     It  is  very  convenient  no  doubt  for  the 
assertor,  the  critic  hints,  to  state  his  '  abstract  law ' 
so  that  no  apparent  failures  in  its  verification  can 
affect  it,  but  what  the  world  really  wants  is  some- 
thing else  than  this.     Truth,  to  be  worthy  of  the 
name,  must  (the  critic  says)  be  verifiable  by  refer- 
ence  to   concrete   facts.     Assertions  whose  truth 
is  only  saved  at  the  expense  of  their  applicability 
are,  he  says,  in  this  dilemma — interpreted  one  way 
they  are  undeniable  but  meaningless  ;  interpreted 
in    any   other   way   they   cease   to  be   true.     No 
amount  of  certainty  that  X  leads  to  Y  will  help  us 

K 


I3o  DISTINCTION 


in  foretelling  the  occurrence  of  Y,  if  X  is  a  term  so 
ambiguous  that  we  cannot  be  sure  when  we  actually 
have  a  case  of  it.  And,  similarly,  no  amount  of 
certainty  that  S  is  P  will  give  us  more  than  a 
merely  verbal  knowledge  of  the  character  of  S,  or 
enable  us  to  predict  behaviour  in  given  cases,  if  the 
line  between  P  and  non-P  is  vaguely  drawn.  For 
then  our  assent  to  the  statement  that  S  is  P 
becomes  only  a  preference  for  one  unmeaning  form 
of  words  instead  of  another.  If  assent  and  denial 
are  not  clearly  marked  off  from  each  other  in  their 
meaning,  how  can  it  really  matter  which  of  the  two 
forms  we  adopt  ? 

When  skilfully  used,  the  demand  for  an  applic- 
able definition  is  a  formidable  weapon  in  con- 
troversy, but  in  the  following  chapters  I  shall  try 
to  show  how  it  may  on  occasion  be  rendered 
harmless. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   '  SPECIAL  OCCASION  ' 

UNREAL  distinctness,  as  we  saw  in  Chapter  V.,  is 
only  '  unreal '  for  those  who  find  it  so.     The  very 
recognition,  besides,  of  any  distinction  as  rough, 
implies  that  we  are  in  a  somewhat  two-sided  or 
self-contradictory  state  of  mind  as  to  its  roughness  ; 
so  far  as  it  seems  to  be  a  distinction  at  all,  the  dis- 
tinguished things  seem  clearly  and  sharply  distinct, 
while  so  far  as  it  seems  to  be  rough  their  distinct- 
ness seems  '  unreal.'     More  than  one  explanation 
might,  no  doubt,  be  given  of  the  manner  in  which 
we  thus  come  to  believe  in  distinctions  and  yet 
not  to  believe  in  them — not  to  take  them  quite 
seriously.     That  is  to  say,  the  cause  of  the  incon- 
sistency is  doubtless   different   in  different  cases. 
Sometimes,   for   instance,   we    merely   forget    our 
own  admission  of  the  roughness  ;  that  admission 
was  made,   perhaps,  when  we  were  on   our   best 
reasoning   behaviour,   and    the    heat    of    contro- 
versy or  the  need  for  relaxation  has  since  brought 

K2 


132  DISTINCTION 


us  back  to  our  ordinary  state  of  mind.  Sometimes 
an  idle  avoidance  of  trouble  will  make  us  put 
refinements  of  thought  out  of  sight.  But  some- 
times, on  the  other  hand,  our  artistic  sense,  or  our 
moral  sense,  or  our  practical  sense,  is  offended  by 
casuistry  ;  we  perceive,  or  think  we  perceive,  that 
doubts  and  refinements  are  in  the  particular  case 
irrelevant  or  confusing.  It  is  this  that  forms  the 
only  sound  excuse  for  unreal  distinctness.  Some- 
times a  rough  distinction  is  sufficient ;  that  is,  in 
brief,  the  whole  story  of  justification. 

But  sufficient  for  what  ?  For  most  purposes  or 
for  one  ?  This  notion  of  sufficient  distinctness,  or 
of  the  irrelevance  of  the  demand  for  a  definition,  is 
in  itself  somewhat  ambiguous,  and  we  have  now  to 
distinguish  between  two  very  different  interpreta- 
tions of  it. 

Though  our  chief  business  in  the  preceding 
chapters  has  been  to  obtain  a  general  view  of  the 
extent  of  unreal  distinctness  that  exists  in  our 
words  and  notions,  and  of  the  manner  in  which 
harm  may  be  done  by  it,  yet  already  several  hints 
have  been  incidentally  given  as  to  the  answer 
which  still  remains  to  be  found  to  our  problem  as 
a  whole. 

It  was  partly  in  order  to  lead   up  to  this,  for 


THE   ' SPECIAL   OCCASION'  133 

instance,  that  the  nature  of  the  conflict  between 
philosophy  and  common-sense  has  been  so  ex- 
pressly brought  into  notice.  If  that  conflict  means 
anything,  we  have  now  sufficiently  seen  it  means 
the  mutual  adjustment  of  claim  between  two  oppo- 
site methods  of  judging,  each  of  which  has  much 
to  say  for  itself — the  method  that  loves  a  general 
rule,  and  the  method  that  loves  an  exception. 
These  rival  ideals,  like  other  rival  ideals,  are  com- 
monly set  in  artificially  sharp  opposition  ;  we 
dignify  as  common-sense,  or  worldly  wisdom,  our 
mere  impatience  with  exceptions,  or  we  dignify  as 
philosophy  our  puerile  fancy  that  truth  is  only  to 
be  found  in  paradox.  But  we  have  here  chosen 
to  conceive  the  opposition  less  sharply  and  easily, 
and  are  therefore  prevented  from  setting  either 
method  entirely  above  the  other.  It  is  not,  indeed, 
any  part  of  our  purpose  to  attempt  to  map  out  the 
two  provinces  completely,  but  only  to  guard  against 
certain  encroachments  on  one  by  the  other.  And 
if  we  simply  try  to  allow  both  methods  their  fair 
share  in  solving  the  line-drawing  difficulty,  that 
will  involve  our  paying  some  express  regard  to 
exceptional  cases  and  special  occasions.  Though 
the  distinction  between  common-sense  and  philo- 
sophy is  a  gradual  one,  the  higher  grades  of  either 
are  always  ready  to  bring  against  the  lower  grades 


134  DISTINCTION 


exactly  the  same  objection — slavish  adherence  to 
rule — that  morality  brings  against  law,  or  religion 
against  a  narrow  and  formal  morality.  The  old 
conflict  between  worldly  wisdom  and  childlike 
directness  of  vision  would  not  possess  so  much 
vitality  as  it  does  but  for  the  fact  that  the  child, 
like  the  scientific  man  or  philosopher,  is  often  less 
hampered  by  convention,  or  prejudice,  or  cut-and- 
dried  rule,  in  observing  special  cases. 

But  a  much  more  plain  and  direct  hint  has  also 
been  given  several  times  in  these  chapters.  For 
instance,  near  the  beginning  l  we  noticed  that  am- 
biguity is  most  troublesome  where  the  things  or 
cases  that  a  descriptive  name  groups  together 
resemble  each  other  closely  but  yet  differ  in  '  deeper 
or  more  occasional '  ways  ;  or  where  a  word  in 
much  of  its  everyday  use  is  plain  and  unmistak- 
able, and  only  becomes  ambiguous  '  on  rare  occa- 
sions '  ;  and  that  on  any  given  occasion  of  the  use 
of  a  class-name  the  question  is  liable  to  arise 
whether  the  resemblance  or  the  difference  is  the 
more  important.  And  again,  near  the  end 2  of 
Chapter  L,  the  promise  was  made  that  we  were  to 
see,  in  the  sequel,  how  casuistry — that  is  to  say, 
the  Socratic  demand  for  a  definition — may  be  on 
occasion  defeated  through  irrelevance  to  some 
1  P.  5.  2  P.  12. 


THE   '  SPECIAL   OCCASION'  135 

'  special  and  passing  purpose.'  And  again,  towards 
the  end  '  of  Chapter  VIII.  it  was  said  that  the 
practical  problem  is  to  distinguish  with  increas- 
ingly greater  correctness  the  relative  importance  of 
differences  in  regard  to  '  a  constantly  shifting 
and  various  set  of  occasions.' 

This  notion  of  judging  the  value  of  every 
distinction  by  reference  to  the  special  occasion  of 
its  use  is  the  point  at  which  we  begin  to  quarrel 
with  unphilosophical  common-sense.  Even  here, 
indeed,  the  quarrel  need  not  be  a  very  severe  one, 
since,  so  far  as  common-sense  really  exercises  the 
'  tact '  which  it  claims  to  possess,  it  is  adopting  the 
very  same  method  as  philosophy,  though  less  con- 
sciously. The  exercise  of  tact  involves  occasional 
and  judicious  departure  from  hard-and-fast  rule,  and 
our  quarrel,  therefore,  is  not  with  common-sense  as 
such,  but  only  so  far  as  (through  hurry,  or  fear  of 
paradox,  or  lack  of  discriminating  power)  it  does 
in  fact  allow  some  general  rule  to  keep  our  thought 
in  chains.  And,  since  each  party  to  any  dispute 
about  ideals  accuses  the  other  of  being  misled  by  a 
faulty  distinction,  no  one  can  well  deny  that  such 
failures  of  tact,  or  of  patience,  in  interpreting  dis- 
tinctions do  sometimes  occur.  Indeed,  the  relative 
importance  of  differences  is  often  not  judged  by 
1  P.  96. 


136  DISTINCTION 


means  of  any  reference,  either  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, to  the  occasions  of  the  use  of  the  word  that 
hides  them,  but  an  easier  plan  is  followed  ;  common- 
sense  tries  to  cut  the  knot  by  grouping  the  various 
occasions  as  well  as  it  can  together.  Differences 
that  are  important  on  most  occasions,  or  on  most 
of  the  more  important  occasions,  are  for  such 
common-sense  the  '  important  differences.'  Here, 
as  throughout  its  procedure,  exceptional  cases  are 
disliked.  An  example  of  this  is  provided  wherever 
the  charge  of  quibbling  is  brought  against  anyone 
in  the  name  of  common-sense.  For  instance  : — 

Lord  R.  Churchill :  '  He  says  it  is  well  known  in  war 
that  movements  which  are  offensive  in  their  nature  are 
sometimes  defensive  in  their  essence.' 

Mr.  Gladstone :  '  Offensive  in  their  form.' 
Lord  R.  Churchill :  '  What  does  that  come  to — that 
the  attack  of  General  Graham  was  offensive  in  its  form 
but  not  in  its  nature  ?  Three  thousand  men,  or  more, 
were  slaughtered,  as  a  matter  of  form,  by  movements 
which  were  not  offensive  in  their  nature  ! ' 

Here  Mr.  Gladstone's  critic  claims  to  speak  in 
the  name  of  common-sense,  and  so  objects  to  his 
somewhat  exceptional  use  of  the  word  '  offensive.' 

One  of  the  best  ways  in  which  the  rivalry  of 
these  two  methods  may  be  understood,  is  by  refer- 
ring to  the  familiar  difference  between  common- 


THE  <  SPECIAL   OCCASION'  137 


sense  and  science  on  the  question  as  to  what  con- 
stitutes essential  resemblance  or  difference.  This 
question  is  of  great  importance  in  all  reflection 
upon  our  judgments,  and  the  phrase  has  passed 
into  everyday  use.  There  is  hardly  a  person,  able 
to  read  at  all,  who  does  not  know  its  meaning  to 
some  extent  ;  everyone  is  glad  of  so  convenient  a 
phrase.  When  we  think  we  see  an  analogy 
between  two  things  or  events,  A  and  B,  we  call 
them  '  essentially  the  same,'  and  when  we  dispute 
someone  else's  opinion  that  A  and  B  (say,  the 
Suez  and  Panama  canals)  are  analogous,  we  call 
them  '  essentially  different.'  And,  however 
superior  unscientific  opinion  may  be  to  scientific 
opinion  in  the  actual  practice  of  recognising 
essential  resemblance  or  difference  in  this  or  that 
case,  yet  the  general  account  it  gives  of  its  own 
procedure  is  unsatisfactory  ;  for  it  shows  a  tend- 
ency to  speak  broadly  of  degree  of  resemblance 
and  difference,  and  to  judge  whether  a  given  case 
of  resemblance  or  difference  is  great  or  small 
rather  by  means  of  a  rapid  survey  of  its  salient 
features  than  by  carefully  analysing  it  into  details 
of  greater  and  less  importance  in  regard  to  some 
special  purpose.  Now,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
vcitories  of  science  have  been  won  by  exactly 
reversing  this  procedure  ;  by  cultivating  a  steady 


138  DISTINCTION 


distrust  of  the  resemblances  and  differences  that  are 
most  obvious  and  striking,  in  favour  of  those  that, 
though  small  in  appearance,  have  an  especial  im- 
portance in  regard  to  some  question  that  happens 
to  be  in  hand.  It  is  rather  the  scalded  dog  than 
the  scalded  man  that  fears  cold  water  ;  the  scalded 
man  long  ago  set  his  wits  to  work  to  discover 
exactly  what  the  condition  was  upon  which  the 
scalding  depended,  and  he  found  that,  however 
great  may  be  the  degree  of  resemblance  between 
hot  and  cold  water,  yet  the  difference,  in  spite  of 
being  less  obvious,  is  essential  so  far  as  scalding  is 
concerned.  For  the  purpose  of  quenching  fire,  or 
diluting  another  liquid,  and  so  on,  the  difference 
between  hot  and  cold  water  is  unimportant,  or 
nearly  so ;  but  to  call  it,  therefore,  unimportant 
throughout  would  be  a  procedure  too  rough-and- 
ready  for  any  common-sense  above  the  level  of  a 
dog's. 

It  is  here  suggested  that  the  question  as  to  the 
importance  or  unimportance  of  roughness  in  a  dis- 
tinction is  fundamentally  a  case  of  this  kind.  Just 
as  science,  in  estimating  the  relevance  of  details, 
comes  into  conflict  with  unscientific  opinion,  so 
philosophy  comes  into  conflict  with  common-sense 
in  estimating  the  relevance  of  the  objection  that  a 
distinction  is  rough.  '  Essential '  resemblance  or 


THE  '  SPECIAL    OCCASION^  139 

difference  is  at  bottom  '  important '  resemblance  or 
difference,  and  importance  is  always  a  matter  of  rele- 
vance to  some  purpose,  and  purpose  is  always  liable 
to  vary  with  the  special  occasion.  The  easiest  plan 
of  judging  importance  or  relevance — if  we  do  not 
care  very  much  for  correctness  of  judgment — is 
to  regard  '  importance  '  as  an  amount,  and  to  judge 
the  amount  on  general  grounds  somehow,  or  by 
means  of  a  hasty  review  of  its  obvious  and  striking 
features.  Thus,  in  judging  whether  an  objection 
to  some  rough  distinction  is  important  or  not,  we 
are  always  tempted  to  think  of  its  general  import- 
ance, broadly  conceived — instead  of  its  special 
importance,  its  relevance  to  the  matter  that  happens 
to  be  in  hand.  And  the  notion  of  (what  may  be 
called)  '  general  relevance,'  though  not  to  be  entirely 
discarded,  must  be  superseded  by  that  of  special 
relevance  wherever  the  two  conflict.  Its  value, 
though  real,  is  secondary ;  our  knowledge  of  where 
irrelevance  commonly  begins  may  help  us  in 
judging  whether  and  when  an  actual  enquiry  is 
justified  ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  the  actual  enquiry  that 
wants  a  justification,  and  this  or  that  actual  enquiry 
cannot  be  finally  condemned  on  the  ground  that 
somewhat  similar  enquiries  (or  even  the  same 
enquiry)  on  somewhat  similar  occasions,  are  trivial. 
Thus  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between  man 


140  DISTINCTION 


and  beast,  though  it  destroys  the  meaning  of  the 
question  (e.g.}  whether1  man  invented  language  or 
had  it  from  the  first,  leaves  us  able  to  speak 
unambiguously  about  existing  men  as  distinct  from 
existing  beasts. 

In  short,  when  common-sense  claims  that  a 
contrast  is  '  sufficiently  '  sharp,  or  complains  of  the 
'  irrelevance '  of  an  enquiry  into  the  exact  definition 
of  a  term,  it  is  apt  to  forget  that  both  sufficiency  and 
relevance  are  relative  to  some  purpose  ;  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  sufficiency  or  relevance  at  large. 
The  meaning  of  the  plea,  as  it  is  commonly  made,  is 
that  the  borderland  between  A  and  non-A  is  small 
in  amount  (or  extent),  and  therefore  unimportant ; 
the  only  sound  plea  is  that,  whether  small  or  large  in 
amount,  the  roughness  does  not  at  all  affect  some 
purpose  immediately  in  view — that  the  roughness, 
though  it  has  relevance  in  other  connections,  has 
absolutely  no  relevance  at  all  between  the  assertor 

1  Did  '  man '  invent  language,  or  was  it  an  original  possession 
of  the  human  race  ?  The  question  assumes  that  the  two  alternatives 
exclude  each  other  ;  but  if  the  line  between  man  and  man's  non- 
human  ancestors  be  broken  down,  how  are  we  to  answer  either  '  yes  ' 
or  '  no '  to  either  portion  of  it  ?  Why  should  not  the  answer  accept 
both  the  supposed  alternatives,  and  also  deny  them  both  ?  The 
first  persons  who  used  language  were  either  men  or  men's  non-htiman 
ancestors,  whichever  we  choose  to  call  them.  And  in  the  question 
as  stated  the  distinction  between  man  and  not-man  is  conceived  too 
sharply  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  used. 


THE   'SPECIAL    OCCASION'  141 

and  his  audience  on  some  special  occasion  or  for 
some  limited  and  passing  purpose. 

We  shall  return  to  this  subject  presently,1  and 
I  shall  try  to  show  the  truth  and  bearing  of  the 
above  remarks  in  the  light  of  examples.  Mean- 
while, in  order  to  help  in  obtaining  a  concise 
statement  of  the  result  we  are  to  reach,  it  may 
be  useful  to  refer  back  to  what  was  said 2  about 
the  practice  of  naming  'unrealities' — naming,  as  if 
they  were  real,  things  which  admittedly  have  only 
a  potential  existence.  For  this  is  closely  analogous 
to  the  practice  of  using  a  distinction  which  we 
admit  to  be  not  quite  sharply  applicable.  Just  as, 
in  the  one  case,  we  leave  out  of  sight,  for  a  passing 
and  limited  purpose,  the  doubts  affecting  the  actu- 
ality of  the  '  thing  '  which  is  named,  so  in  the 
other  case  we  leave  out  of  sight,  for  a  passing  and 
limited  purpose,  the  real  difficulties  that  we  know 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  drawing  the  line.  In  both 
cases  there  is  an  assumption,  or  a  postulate  and  a 
concession,  that  these  questions  of  detail  may  for 
a  time  be  considered  irrelevant.  And  it  would 
help  us  greatly  in  clearing  our  ideas  about  distinc- 
tions generally  if  we  had  some  way  of  describing 
their  nature  so  as  to  emphasise  the  fact  of  their 
dependence,  not  on  bare  difference,  however  great 
1  P.  150.  2  Pp.  61-69. 


142  DISTINCTION 


or  natural,  but  on  essential  difference,  however 
small  or  artificial — on  difference  the  importance  of 
which  varies  for  different  purposes  ;  so  that  any 
special  occasion  may  on  the  one  hand  require  that 
some  real  difference  should  be  put  as  far  as  possible 
out  of  sight,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  compel  us  to 
notice  a  difference  which  our  ordinary  language 
leaves  unrecognised. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE   RELATIVITY   OF   DISTINCTIONS 

STATED  in  its  shortest  and  most  general  form,  the 
truth  which  we  are  seeking  to  establish  is  that  the 
validity  of  any  distinction  is  relative  to  the  purpose 
for  which  it  is  used  at  the  time,  or  that  the  question 
whether  a  given  distinction  is  valid  can  be  decided 
only  by  reference  to  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  used 
on  a  special  occasion.  But  these  short  statements 
will  require  to  be  expanded. 

By  the  '  validity '  of  a  distinction  is  here  meant 
its  resistance  to  criticism,  its  right  to  escape  con- 
demnation on  the  score  of  inapplicability,  or  unreal 
distinctness.  The  distinctions  we  use  are  '  valid  ' 
so  far  as  our  words  are  free  from  ambiguity.  After 
what  has  been  admitted  already  !  about  the  con- 
tinuity of  Nature,  we  can  make  no  plausible  pre- 
tence of  disputing  the  charge  of  unreal  distinctness 
itself ;  every  distinction  is  rough  if  we  choose  to  be 
strict  in  demanding  applicability  ;  the  charge  must, 
1  P,  71. 


,44  DISTINCTION 


therefore,  be  admitted  and  yet  somehow  disarmed, 
if  we  are  to  avoid  the  deadlock  into  which  the  con- 
tinuity of  Nature  at  first  appears  to  lead.  In  other 
words,  we  must  find  some  way  of  answering  '  true 
but  irrelevant '  to  the  complaint  that  the  actual  line 
between  A  and  non-A  cannot  be  drawn  exactly, 
and  hence  it  was  that  the  notion  of  relevance  came 
to  be  discussed  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

And  it  follows  from  what  was  there  said  that 
the  notion  of  '  special  relevance '  and  that  of  the 
'  purpose  '  for  which  a  distinction  is  used  are  each 
involved  in  the  other.  For  instance,  the  purpose 
of  the  distinction  between  hot  and  cold  water  may 
be  on  occasion  either  the  question  as  to  the  causes 
of  scalding  or  one  of  the  other  questions  where  the 
distinction  has  less  importance  ;  and  the  purpose 
for  which  the  distinction  between  man  and  beast  is 
used  may  be  either  (e.g.)  the  question  how  far 
natural  impulses  should  be  discouraged,  or  the  ques- 
tion how  far  thought  is  dependent  on  language. 
Such  purpose  is  always,  in  the  end,  an  argument. 
For  distinction  is  the  creation  (or  recognition)  of 
alternatives,  and  if  these  are  created  (or  noticed) 
for  any  purpose  at  all,  this  can  only  be  that  they 
shall  be  used  as  alternatives — that  is  to  say,  that 
we  may  be  able  to  argue  at  least  from  the  assertion 
of  the  one  to  the  denial  of  the  other.  Where  two 


THE  RELATIVITY  OF  DISTINCTIONS     145 

or  more  alternatives  are  supposed  to  exist,  whether 
alternative  epithets  (e.g.,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent}, 
or  alternative  courses  (e.g.,  take  it,  or  leave  it},  or 
alternative  explanations  (e.g.,  on  purpose,  or  by  acci- 
dent}, the  point  or  meaning  of  their  separation  into 
distinct  alternatives  lies  in  the  distinctness  of  that 
separation.  If  that  be  lost — as  happens  where  the 
charge  of  roughness  is  relevant — the  alternatives 
fail  to  fulfil  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  de- 
signed. 

Hence,  a  phrase  that  will  sometimes  be  of  ser- 
vice in  this  connection  is  the  '  argumentative  use ' 
of  a  distinction.  A  distinction  is  used  argumen- 
tatively  where  the  assertor  lays  stress,  or  emphasis, 
on  it  ;  where  he  wishes  to  use  the  terms  A  and  B, 
or  A  and  non-A,  as  distinct,  and  so  takes  upon 
himself  responsibility  for  drawing  the  line  between 
them.  If  we  use  this  phrase,  however,  we  must 
remember  that  it  is  only  so  far  as  the  assertor 
intends  to  found  an  argument  of  his  own  upon  the 
name  A  (or  non-A)  that  he  takes  any  responsi- 
bility for  its  definition  ;  and,  as  we  shall  see  later,1 
to  adopt  a  distinction  '  for  the  sake  of  argument ' 
is  a  very  different  matter.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  the 
phrase  is  a  useful  one,  as  reminding  us  that  some 

1  P.  187. 


146  DISTINCTION 


argument,  whether  of  the  assertor's  own  or  not,  is 
the  only  purpose  that  ever  explains  a  distinction 
— explains,  that  is,  our  recognition  of  this  or  that 
difference  while  other  differences  are  overlooked. 
When  we  group  men  on  one  side  of  a  line  and 
animals  on  the  other,  we  overlook  for  the  time  the 
difference  between  one  man  and  another,  or  between 
one  animal  and  another,  fixing  attention  on  the  dif- 
ference that  for  some  purpose  or  purposes,  however 
vaguely  conceived,  we  regard  as  more  important. 
And  it  follows,  further,  that  all  useful  criticism  of  the 
names  or  distinctions  used  by  the  assertor  resolves 
itself  into  the  judgment  that  his  argumentative  use 
of  them  is  in  some  way  unjustified.  He  may  make 
what  distinctions,  or  use  what  names,  he  pleases, 
so  long  as  he  does  not  seek  to  lead  us  by  means  of 
them  into  conclusions  which  we  decline  to  admit  ; 
it  is  when  he  attempts  to  do  this  that  we  begin  to 
raise  awkward  questions  as  to  the  stress  which  his 
distinctions  will  really  bear. 

But  we  shall  best  begin  to  see  the  meaning  of 
the  short  statement  which  was  made  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  chapter  by  asking  what  other  doc- 
trines it  contradicts  or  supersedes  ;  and  though  a 
few  hints  as  to  this  may  be  gathered  from  what  has 
been  said  about  the  opposition  between  the  com- 
mon-sense and  the  philosophical  methods  of  esti- 


THE  RELATIVITY  OF  DISTINCTIONS    147 


mating   relevance,  yet   there  will  be  some  use  in 
raising  the  question  more  directly. 

The  task,  however,  of  proving  that  common- 
sense  really  holds  this  or  that  false  doctrine  is  far 
from  an  easy  one,  Besides  the  difficulty  of  decid- 
ing who  are  the  authorised  spokesmen  of  common- 
sense,  that  '  tact '  which  we  have  already  mentioned 
so  often  enables  those  who  possess  it  to  elude  the 
logical  critic  in  a  very  slippery  manner.  It  is 
always  easy  to  claim  that  your  general  statement 
(if  you  take  the  trouble  to  make  one  at  all)  is  only 
broad  or  rough,  and  that  you  yourself  know  all  its 
faults,  and  never  dream  of  taking  it  in  its  bald  and 
literal  interpretation.  It  is  meant  to  be  used,  you 
say,  just  as  sensible  people  use  a  proverb  ;  it  pre- 
tends to  no  more  strict  generality  than  statements 
like  '  where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way,'  and  similar 
incomplete  truths.  So  that  even  if  you  assert,  for 
instance,  that  the  validity  of  a  distinction  is  best 
judged  by  means  of  a  rapid  comprehensive  glance 
or  a  happy  instinct  that  refuses  to  pay  any  peddling 
attention  to  subtleties,  you  may  in  the  end  be  only 
describing  with  some  artistic  license  a  process 
which  you  really  perform  in  a  sufficiently  capable 
manner.  And  this  is  perhaps  an  excellent  defence 
on  the  part  of  the  common-sense  individual  against 
criticism  on  the  part  of  a  philosopher.  That  is  to 


148  DISTINCTION 


say,  on  the  face  of  it,  and  apart  from  chance  oppor- 
tunities of  getting  behind  the  scenes,  it  leaves  the 
philosopher  with  no  firm  ground  for  a  personal 
accusation.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible 
that  the  personal  accusation  is  not  the  true  centre 
of  interest ;  the  philosopher,  in  finding  fault  with 
some  general  statement,  may  not  have  had  in  view 
the  case  of  the  gifted  individual  who  interprets  it 
safely,  but  rather  that  of  the  many  less  gifted  indi- 
viduals whose  outlook,  already  narrow,  is  still  further 
limited  by  the  prison  walls  of  the  doctrine  in  ques- 
tion. He  will  then  admit  the  analogy  between  such 
a  statement  and  proverbs,  but  will  point  to  the  fact 
that  proverbs  also  exercise  an  extremely  misleading 
influence — an  influence  that  would  be  much  worse 
than  it  is  but  for  the  inconsistencies  and  contra- 
dictions that  opposite  proverbs  encourage,  so  that 
what  the  ignorant  learn  from  one  they  can  unlearn 
from  another. 

With  this  explanation,  however,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  background  of  the  doctrine  that  distinction 
is  relative  to  special  purpose — the  opposite  doctrine 
which  is  contradicted  by  it,  and  by  contrast  with 
which  its  meaning  stands  out — is  that  the  validity 
of  distinctions  is  at  any  rate  something  that  does 
not  come  and  go  with  the  context,  but  inheres  in 
the  distinction  somewhat  as  a  good  constitution 


THE  RELATIVITY  OF  DISTINCTIONS     149 

inheres  in  a  healthy  man  ;  that  distinctions  are  to  be 
classed  as  more  or  less  rough  on  the  whole,  or  even 
as  rough  and  non-rough,  without  reference  to  the 
special  occasion  on  which  they  are  used  ;  in  short, 
that  a  rough  distinction  is  always  rough,  and  a 
sharp  one  always  sharp.  This  common-sense  doc- 
trine, like  a  proverb,  is  an  incomplete  truth  which 
in  practice  misleads  people  easily.  Though  we 
can  seldom  say  beforehand  for  certain  that  it  will 
mislead  this  or  that  person,  it  is  generally  possible 
to  discover  afterwards  that  it  has  done  so ;  and 
perhaps  the  best  way  to  contrast  the  influence  of 
the  two  opposed  views  respectively  will  be  to 
examine  a  few  examples  where  a  difference  of 
opinion  has  arisen  as  to  the  validity  of  some  dis- 
tinction. These,  therefore,  will  be  found  in  the 
next  chapter. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

SOME   ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  question  whether  a  distinction  is  valid  takes 
in  practice  so  many  different  forms  that  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  select  any  one  of  them  as  fairly  represen- 
tative. In  fact,  if  it  be  true  that  all  criticism  of 
judgment  is  criticism  of  distinction,1  it  follows 
that  wherever  opinions  conflict  the  question  is 
raised,  however  obscurely,  whether  some  distinc- 
tion is  valid.  We  are,  therefore,  free  to  take  any 
examples  of  divided  opinion  and  use  them  for 
illustration.  And  what  we  want  especially  to 
notice  are  the  consequences  of  failing  to  see  that 
the  validity  of  distinctions  comes  and  goes  with 
the  occasion.  Such  consequences  are  of  two 
opposite  kinds,  the  commoner 2  kind  being  exces- 

1  See  page  193. 

2  It  is  generally  easier  to  leave  a  distinction  uncriticised  than  to 
see  it  as  fluid  and  abstract,  and  that  is  why   I  suspect  the  former 
to  be  the  commoner  fault.     But  the  question  of  relative  frequency 
is  only  of  accidental  and  local  importance.     If  our  tact  in  the  use 
of  distinctions  fails  in  either  direction,  the  result  is  equally  error. 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  151 

sive  belief  in  the  validity  of  some  distinction  which 
has,  for  the  moment  or  more,  become  invalid  ;  and 
the  rarer  kind  being  refusal  to  take  (even  for  a 
moment)  some  distinction  as  valid  whose  faults 
have  once  been  seen. 

Certainly,  one  result  of  failing  to  see  the  rela- 
tivity of  distinction  in  general  is  that  distinctions 
whose  faultiness  only  creates  a  difficulty  on  rare 
occasions  tend  in  practice  to  escape  criticism  alto- 
gether. It  is  very  natural  that  such  distinctions 
should  be  accepted  uncritically,  classed  as  valid 
once  for  all,  and  no  further  thought  be  given  to  the 
matter  ;  so  that  when  the  rare  occasion  comes,  we 
are  unprepared  to  meet  it.  We  acquire  a  habit  of 
trusting  the  distinction,  and  in  time  the  habit 
becomes  too  strong  to  allow  our  critical  powers 
fair  play.  From  the  commonest  thought  upwards 
to  the  most  abstruse  and  intricate,  this  tendency 
may  be  seen  at  work  ;  and  the  only  difficulty  is  to 
select,  from  among  the  host  of  examples  daily  met 
with,  those  that  will  best  serve  for  illustration. 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  scale  we  may  place  the 
neglect  to  criticise  such  a  distinction  as  that  between 
metaphorical  and  unmetaphorical  language.  Within 
broad  limits  we  all  know  very  well  what  metaphor 
is  ;  it  is  the  salt  of  expression,  and  you  can  have 
too  much  of  it  or  too  little.  In  a  large  percentage 


152  DISTINCTION 


of  cases  the  difference  is  clear  enough.  But  even 
a  very  slight  acquaintance  with  the  nature  of 
language  will  suffice  to  show  that  metaphorical 
words  become  unmetaphorical  by  degrees,  so  that 
at  all  times  some  words  are  in  the  transition  stage. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  nearly  l  all  words  have  plainly 
been  metaphorical  when  first  applied  to  their 
present  uses,  and  even  those  that  are  most  straight- 
forward to-day  have  only  gradually  lost  their  meta- 
phorical character.  The  word  character  ^  is  itself 
an  example.  Each  of  them  has  for  a  time  remained 
on  the  borderland  between  metaphor  and  straight- 
forward meaning ;  hundreds  (like  borderland  or 
straightforward}  have  a  tinge  of  metaphorical 
meaning  now ;  so  that  it  is  only  a  careless  view 
which  can  content  itself  with  finding  no  difficulty 
in  applying  the  distinction.  And  how,  for  instance, 
will  the  problem  as  to  avoiding  assumption  under 
cover  of  metaphor  be  dealt  with  by  anyone  who 
sees  no  difficulty  in  it  ?  We  are  all  at  times  liable 
to  take  metaphorical  phrases  for  direct  ones  ;  much 
more,  therefore,  those  who  do  not  suspect  their 
own  liability  to  be  misled.  And  the  same  with  the 

1  We  may  say,  rather,  all,  except  perhaps  the  names  of  some  of 
the  longest-known  and  simplest  material  things,  and  a  few  acci- 
dentally invented  names  like  gas,  though  even  there  some  already- 
existing  word  (gheest,  for  instance)  has  often  influenced  the  inventor. 

1  From  xapafT^p,  '  an  engraved  mark.' 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  153 

merely  literary  problem  as  to  avoiding  a  mixture 
of  metaphors.  The  difficulty  is  not  to  be  solved  by 
refusing  to  see  it,  but  needs  rather  wariness  and 
some  knowledge  of  the  ways  in  which  a  word  may 
keep  or  lose,  for  a  time,  its  metaphorical  character. 
For,  apart  from  the  change  which  comes  through 
lapse  of  time,  context  also  has  some  influence  in 
bringing  forward  or  concealing  the  remains  of 
metaphorical  meaning. 

Hard-and-fast  distinctions  are  the  bane  of 
psychology,  as  every  student  of  that  difficult  subject 
knows  ;  but  in  popular  talk  about  the  mind  and  its 
operations  or  its  '  faculties '  very  little  trace  of  such 
knowledge  appears.  Not  only  are  distinctions,  like 
those  between  conscious  and  unconscious  mental  life, 
or  voluntary  and  involuntary  action,  used  with  ex- 
cessive confidence,  but  other  more  pretentious  dis- 
tinctions, like  that  between  sensation  and  perception, 
cognition  and  recognition,  simple  and  complex,  sub- 
jective and  objective,  occasionally  find  their  way 
also  into  common  talk.  In  these  and  very  many 
similar  cases  language,  with  its  false  simplicity,  is 
ever  ready  to  entrap  us  into  error,  and  often 
succeeds  in  doing  so.  If  we  fail  to  recognise  the 
roughness  of  such  distinctions  our  conception  of  the 
mind  and  its  work  will  be  a  mechanical  one,  as  if 
the  various  parts  of  the  mind  were  put  together 


154  DISTINCTION 


like  the  parts  of  a  machine.  There  may,  no  doubt, 
be  purposes  for  which  such  a  conception  has  a 
temporary  value — there  is,  probably,  no  fault  of 
language  that  has  not  some  such  justification — but 
it  is  when  we  proceed  to  build  upon  these  distinc- 
tions, as  if  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  their 
validity,  that  the  effects  of  the  error  are  seen. 
Mr.  Ruskin,  for  instance,  may  perhaps  be  justified 
in  writing : — 

'I  wholly  deny  that  the  impressions  of  beauty  are 
in  any  way  sensual ;  they  are  neither  sensual  nor  in- 
tellectual, but  moral.' 

His  intention  may  merely  have  been  to  assert,  in  an 
emphatic  manner,  that  common  opinion  has  hitherto 
rather  overlooked  the  moral  element  in  our  vision 
of  beauty  ;  but  if  the  young  disciple  should  take 
the  sentence  quite  literally,  he  would  get  a  much 
too  limited  idea  of  what  the  impression  of  beauty 
really  involves. 

Akin  to  these  lapses  in  psychology,  and  at 
a  rather  higher  level,  a  frequent  common-sense 
error  is  that  of  laying  too  much  stress  on  the 
distinction  between  theory  and  fact ;  that  is  to 
say,  between  deniable  and  undeniable  assertions. 
Theories,  it  is  supposed,  are  built  upon  facts  as  a 
house  upon  its  foundations  ;  facts  are  said  to  upset 
theories  as  if  they  were  opposed  to  them  and 


SOME   ILLUSTRATIONS  155 

wholly  independent.  As  everyone  admits,  the 
distinction  has  often  great  convenience.  Any 
logic — any  theory  of  criticism — must  use  it  largely, 
since  the  main  business  of  such  criticism  is  to 
distinguish  between  what  is  deniable  and  what  is 
undeniable  in  any  given  conclusion.  Logic  is 
compelled,  therefore  (though  in  a  more  transient 
manner  the  less  elementary  the  logic),  to  assume 
that  fact  and  theory  stand  in  opposition  to  each 
other.  The  difficulty  consists  in  duly  recognising 
their  opposition  without  exaggerating  its  extent, 
and  there  is  small  cause  for  wonder  that  we  should 
often  fail  to  solve  so  delicate  a  problem.  A  common 
form  of  the  error  may  sometimes  be  seen  in  the 
process  of  proving  '  facts  '  before  a  court  of  law. 
But  the  same  liability  to  confuse,  in  practice,  the 
deniable  with  the  undeniable,  under  cover  of  the 
ideal  distinction  between  them,  occurs  in  a  subtler 
way  wherever  we  try  to  separate  our  theories  from 
the  facts  they  rest  upon  ;  since  '  fact '  is  always 
partly  theory.  All  fact,  that  is  to  say,  is  fact  as 
theorised — as  seen  through  spectacles  of  theory ; 
so  that  when  we  assume  any  fact  to  be  pure,  we 
do  so  only  by  leave,  for  the  sake  of  turning  atten- 
tion to  the  use  that  is  made  of  it  rather  than  to  its 
own  possible  shortcomings  as  a  fact. 

The   fluid   nature   of  the   distinction  between 


156  DISTINCTION 


fact  and  theory  forces  itself  upon  our  notice  most 
effectively  in  the  failure  of  all  our  attempts  to 
understand  in  the  light  of  that  distinction  the 
earliest  beginnings  of  knowledge.  We  do  not 
become  conscious  of  any  theorising  until  we  have 
already  done  a  good  deal  of  it  unconsciously.  We 
cannot  find,  or  even  imagine,  the  perfectly  un- 
theoretic  mind  receiving  its  earliest  fact.  At  the 
furthest  point  to  which  we  can  get  backwards  in 
imagination,  if  we  try  as  hard  as  we  can  to  put 
ourselves  in  the  position  of  people  wholly  without 
experience  who  first  begin  to  reason  about  what 
they  observe,  we  never  succeed  in  reaching  the 
tabula  rasa.  The  simplest  mind  we  can  imagine 
as  mind  at  all  must  have  at  least  enough  theory, 
or  beginnings  of  theory,  to  pave  the  way  for  its 
observation  of  fact.1  How  much  more,  therefore, 
must  the  complex  and  elaborate  '  facts '  observed 
by  any  grown  up  person  to-day  be  seen  in  the  light 
of  theory.  Our  minds  are  steeped  in  language, 
and  the  use  of  language  with  a  meaning  2  requires 

1  This  need  not  mean  that  observation  proceeds  entirely  on 
lines  laid  down  by  theory.     To  some  extent  it  may  rebel  against 
direction,   and  thus  become  liable  to  an  opposite  bias.     At  any 
rate,  conflict  with  expectation  is  one  of  the  means  by  which  atten- 
tion is  roused  to  find  fact  noticeable  ;  and  expectation  is  caused  by 
theory. 

2  I.e.,  connotation.     See  p.  100,  note. 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  157 

a  biassed  mind.  Our  least  wordy  observation  of 
fact  only  differs  gradually  from  description  of  it ; 
though  we  may  think  '  without  words,'  yet  just  as 
verbal  description  implies  expressible  theory,  so  this 
more  silent  description  implies  at  least  theory  in  a 
less  finished  form. 

In  men  of  science  and  philosophers,  again,  the 
same  tendency  to  exaggerate  distinctions  may 
sometimes  be  seen.  For  instance,  Darwin  tells  us 
that,  shortly  before  1859,  'the  great  majority  of 
naturalists  '  believed  that  species  were  immutable 
productions,  and  had  been  separately  created '  ; 
which  means  at  any  rate  that  the  distinction 
between  species  and  variety  was  then  supposed  to 
be  a  firm  one — supposed  so  even  by  the  great 
majority  of  naturalists,  and  therefore  presumably 
still  more  by  common-sense.  And  through  the 
great  change  of  belief  which  has  since  taken  place 
we  can  easily  get  a  glimpse  of  the  contrast  in  result 
between  the  earlier  and  the  later  view.  An  ordinary 
person,  at  the  date  when  the  '  Origin  of  Species ' 
was  written,  might  have  confessed  that  he  did  not 
know  exactly  what  a  species  was,  as  distinct  from 
a  variety,  but  he  would  have  had  no  doubt  that  that 
was  merely  a  piece  of  ignorance  on  his  part,  like 

1  Wallace   adds  :    '  and    almost    without   exception    the   whole 
literary  and  scientific  world.1 


158  DISTINCTION 


his  ignorance  of  the  technical  difference  between, 
say,  a  '  crime '  and  a  '  misdemeanour,'  or  between 
the  various  sorts  of  type  that  printers  distinguish, 
or  of  bricks  that  are  sold  in  the  building  trade.  In 
a  vague  way  he  might  suppose  that  species  were 
'created,'  but  this  is  only  a  name  for  the  total 
absence  of  theory  l  as  to  origin,  and  if  he  ever 
enquired  into  their  origin  seriously,  the  very  sharp- 
ness of  the  distinction  itself  would  prevent  him 
from  asking  just  the  questions  that  we  ask  with 
greatest  interest  now.  Aware  as  we  are  now  of 
^.^possibility  that  species  are  only  varieties  with 
the  difference  somewhat  increased  and  hardened, 
our  attention  directs  itself  to  the  ways  in  which 
this  growth  might  conceivably  have  come  about  in 
special  cases  :  here  and  there  we  think  we  see  some 
links  of  the. chain  of  causation  ;  here  and  there  we 
are  puzzled.  But  at  any  rate  the  line  of  our  enquiry 
is  guided  now  throughout  in  this  direction,  instead 
of  being  kept  away  from  it  by  what  was  supposed 
to  be  an  insurmountable  barrier.  The  recognition 

1  I  mean,  of  course,  theory  attempting  to  give  detailed  explana- 
tion. If  we  say  that  species  were  '  created '  we  mean,  amongst 
other  things,  that  we  cannot  trace  any  actual  steps  of  the  process  by 
which  they  came  to  be  ;  and  some  anti-Darwinians  (e.g. ,  the  Rev.  J. 
Gerard,  see  below,  p.  187)  expressly  claim  to  be  on  the  side  of 
those  who  '  do  not  yet  know. ' 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  159 

of  the  distinction  as  artificial  opens  up  a  whole  new 
and  fertile  field  of  enquiry  into  facts. 

Another  example  may  be  taken  from  the 
Socialist  controversy.  Socialism  l  is  supported  and 
attacked  on  two  grounds  chiefly — its  justice  and 
its  expediency.  And  the  Socialist  notion  of  justice, 
its  opponents  say,  is  to  a  great  extent  influenced 
by  mere  class-hatred,  which  is  not  a  lofty,  and 
certainly  not  an  impartial,  spirit.  The  Socialist 
notion  of  justice  is  not  (the  opponents  say)  com- 
prehensive enough  in  its  scope,  but  tends  to  exalt 
the  hired  labourer,  and  especially  the  unskilled 
hired  labourer,  into  a  position  above  that  which  he 
really  deserves  at  the  hands  of  the  community. 
For  it  is  not  true,  in  the  sense  in  which  Socialists 
use  the  phrase,  that  wealth  is  '  wholly  created  by 
labour '  ;  labour  misdirected  creates  no  wealth,  and 
the  unorganised  or  badly  organised  labour  of  any 
number  of  industrious  men  will  produce  far  less  than 
the  same  amount  of  labour  when  well  directed  and 
organised.  Moreover,  even  the  best  directing 

1  By  this  vague  term  I  mean  the  conscious  political  aim  either 
at  much  greater  equality  of  conditions  than  at  present,  or  at  greatly 
extended  regulation  and  restriction  by  society  at  large  of  the  '  rights ' 
of  the  individual.  These  different  ways  of  describing  it  are  not, 
however,  so  different  as  perhaps  they  seem  at  first.  Socialism  in 
all  its  forms  is  an  attack  upon  private  property. 


160  DISTINCTION 


power,  coupled  with  the  greatest  industry,  may  be 
crippled  by  want  of  capital.1 

This  objection,  rightly  or  wrongly,  implies  that 
the  word  labour,  as  used  by  Socialists,  is  ambigu- 
ous ;  that  the  Socialists  fail  to  see  a  certain  obvious 
difficulty  in  defining  it  ;  that  they  take  the  distinc- 
tion between  labour  and  the  other  factors  of  pro- 
duction as  a  sharp  one,  and  use  it  argumentatively 
to  prove  that  hired  labour  alone  deserves  the  glory 
and  reward.  Here  we  have,  then,  an  instance 
where  the  objection  is  raised  that  a  distinction, 
useful  enough  for  certain  purposes,  is  used  for  a 
purpose  where  its  value  holds  no  longer.  The 
distinction  in  question  is  that  between  labour  on 
the  one  hand  and  capital  and  management  on  the 
other ;  as  productive  of  value,  the  economists 
say,  capital  and  management  '  essentially  resemble  ' 
labour ;  for  the  special  purpose  in  question  they 
are  forms  of  labour,  instead  of  being  opposed  to  it 
The  distinction,  they  say  in  effect,  has  thus  been 
put  to  a  strain  it  will  not  bear. 

These  examples  may  be  enough  2  to  show  the 
manner  in  which  excessive  belief  in  the  validity  of 
a  distinction  disturbs  our  judgment.  Of  the  oppo- 

1  I.e.,  of  power  to  await  deferred  results. 

2  A  few  instances  from  philosophy  are  given  in  the  Appendix, 
p.  264. 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  161 

site  error '  we  are  not  ready  just  yet  to  notice  the 
full  extent  ;  but  one  example  may  serve  to  show 
the  manner  in  which  it  arises  now  and  then.  In  a 
review  by  the  late  Rev.  Aubrey  Moore  of  a  book  2 
by  Mr.  Romanes,  the  following  passage  occurs  : — 

Mr.  Romanes  wishes  to  prove  that  human  and  animal 
psychology  differ  not  in  kind  but  in  degree.  Here 
everyone  is  against  Mr.  Romanes,  including  himself, 
unless  he  is  prepared  to  say  that  evolution  has  abolished 
species,  instead  of  showing  how  species  came  to  be.  If 
a  cat  and  a  dog  are  different  in  kind,  so  are  a  man  and  a 
monkey,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of  the  genetic  rela- 
tions of  the  pairs.  But  this  is  not  what  Mr.  Romanes 
means  by  different  in  kind.  In  a  footnote  to  page  3  he 
says  that  difference  of  kind  means  difference  of  origin, 
and  accuses  Professor  Sayce  of  '  confusion '  for  saying 
that  '  differences  of  degree  become  in  time  differences  of 
kind.'  We  seem  to  remember  a  greater  than  Professor 
Sayce  teaching  us  that  the  categories  of  quantity  and 
quality  disappear  in  'measure.'  And  if  this  sounds  to 
Mr.  Romanes  a  trifle  metaphysical,  we  might  remind 
him  that  whenever  science  has  shown  that  differences  of 
kind,  considered  genetically,  are  differences  of  degree, 
no  one  dreams  of  supposing  that  they  are  any  the  less 

1  Viz.,  the  case  where,  through  finding  a  distinction  rough,  we 
seek  to  prevent  an  opponent  from  using  it,  even  on  occasions  where 
we  ourselves  are  assuming  its  value. 

2  Mental  Evolution  in  Man.     The  review  is  reprinted  in  Mr. 
Aubrey  Moore's  Essays,  Scientific  and  Philosophical,  and  the  passage 
quoted  is  on  p.  45. 

M 


1 62  DISTINCTION 


differences  of  kind.    The  question  of  origin  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it. 

The  argument  here  is  subtle,  but  nevertheless 
instructive.  The  difficulty  is  a  familiar  one  in 
philosophy,  especially  in  regard  to  ethical  questions 
such  as  the  nature  of  the  moral  sentiments.  And 
what  Mr.  Moore  would  have  said  had  he  been  more 
careful  would  probably  have  been  to  the  effect  that 
where  we  are  speaking  only  of  the  fully-developed 
forms  the  reflection  that  A  had  formerly  been  indis- 
tinguishable from  B  becomes  for  the  moment  irre- 
levant— though  even  then  it  is  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  no  one  dreams  of  supposing  it  relevant. 
Would  that  common-sense  had  so  much  discrimi- 
nation !  As  it  stands,  however,  the  meaning  of 
Mr.  Moore's  argument  appears  to  be  to  deny  the 
relevance  of  the  objection,  on  any  occasion,  that  a 
distinction  is  gradual.  If  A  and  B  are  found  to  be 
gradually  distinct,  he  says  in  effect,  no  real  difficulty 
is  thereby  ever  raised  as  to  their  distinctness.  Man 
and  beast  differ  in  kind,  although  the  difference  is 
only  gradual,  and  '  no  one  dreams  of  supposing ' 
otherwise.  If  this  means  anything,  it  means  that 
A  and  B  can  be  distinct  in  kind  and  yet  differ 
only  in  degree. 

It  may  seem  at  first  sight  that  the  strict  truth 
of  this  doctrine  (assuming  that  we  have  found  its 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  163 


meaning  correctly)  must  on  our  own  principles  be 
admitted.  If  Nature  is  continuous  throughout,  then 
certainly  all  differences  are  gradual,  even  those  that 
are  most  specific,  and,  therefore,  the  fact  that  A 
and  B  are  only  gradually  different  does  not  in 
perfect  strictness  prevent  their  being  also  different 
in  kind.  How,  then,  can  we,  of  all  people,  object 
to  Mr.  Moore's  conclusion  ? 

We  can  ask  what  his  meaning  is.  We  can 
claim  with  justice  that  his  doctrine  has  no  meaning 
so  long  as  the  name  '  difference  in  kind '  is  used  at 
all.  .  For  in  order  to  use  that  name,  in  order  to  put 
any  meaning  into  it,  we  must  have  some  alternative 
contrasted  with  it,  and  that  alternative  is '  difference 
in  degree.'  There  is  no  point  in  calling  any  differ- 
ence specific  except  between  parties  who  agree  to 
recognise  some  line,  however  artificially  drawn, 
between  differences  which  are  specific  and  those 
which  are  not  so.  Besides,  distinction  always 
pretends  to  set  different  kinds  apart,  and  so  the 
admission  that  a  distinction  is  really  gradual  means 
that  this  pretence  is  not  justified  in  fact,  however 
justifiable  it  may  be  on  grounds  of  convenience. 
In  admitting  the  truth  that  underlies  Mr.  Moore's 
doctrine,  therefore,  we  are  far  from  admitting  his 
incidental  assertion  about  what  people  in  general 
dream  of  supposing.  On  the  contrary,  everyone, 

M  2 


164  DISTINCTION 


Mr.  Moore  himself  included,  not  only  dreams  of 
supposing,  but  inevitably  does  suppose — whenever 
he  uses  the  name  '  difference  in  kind  '  at  all — that 
its  meaning  is  somehow  to  be  contrasted  with  that 
of  '  difference  in  degree  '—not  confused  with  it  ;  the 
distinction  which  is  drawn  between  these  two 
notions,  though  it  is  (like  all  other  distinctions) 
artificial,  is  made  firm  for  the  moment  by  all  who 
use  either  name  for  any  purpose. 

The  wider  and  closer  our  survey  of  actual  cases 
of  faulty  distinction  becomes,  the  clearer  to  us  will 
be  the  truth  that  distinction  rests  on  purpose,  and 
can  always  be  justified  (for  the  moment) — however 
'  faulty  '  it  be — by  reference  to  that  purpose.  No 
distinction  is  ever  seriously  made  unless  a  difference 
is  recognised  as  having  importance  ] — importance 
enough,  at  least,  to  be  worthy  of  notice  at  times. 
And  the  recognition  that  the  importance  of  differ- 
ences varies  with  the  occasion  lies  really  not  far 
away  from  our  commonest  habits  of  thought. 
Distinctions  among  men,  for  example,  have  their 
appropriate  times  and  seasons ;  before  an  English 
law-court,  though  not  at  a  State-reception,  all  men 
are  in  theory  equal ;  we  are  fully  accustomed  to 
regard  a  husband  and  wife  as  for  some  purposes 

1  Distinctions  based  upon  unimportant  differences  appear  to  be 
meant  when  we  speak  of  'distinctions  withotit  difference." 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  165 


essentially  two  distinct  people,  for  other  purposes 
essentially  one  ;  and  the  distinction  between  a 
sovereign  and  a  sixpence,  important  enough  in 
regard  to  their  purchasing  power,  becomes  un- 
important for  the  purpose  of  'tossing  up.'  So, 
again,  the  distinction  between  life  and  death,  which 
is  constantly  drawn  in  actual  cases  with  practically 
clear  decision,  loses  its  point  where,  as  in  certain 
lower  forms  of  life,  the  individual  and  its  offspring 
are  not  quite  sharply  distinct.  If  an  organism  is 
propagated  by  simple  division,  which  half  is  the 
parent  ?  and  when  does  the  parent  die  ?  However 
vaguely  or  however  clearly  drawn  any  line  may  be, 
there  are  always  some  occasions  for  which  it  is 
sufficient,  and  others  for  which  it  is  not.  So  vague 
a  line,  for  instance,  as  that  between  eccentricity  and 
madness  is  sometimes  useful  ;  so  firm  a  line  as  that 
between  success  and  failure  is  sometimes  found  to 
evade  a  completely  final  test.  To  call  a  distinction 
faulty  never  means  more  than  that  it  is  faulty  at 
times  ;  to  call  it  faultless  only  means — if  Nature 
be  continuous — that  for  some  purpose  in  view  its 
roughness  is  irrelevant.  Language  as  a  whole 
may,  with  hardly  a  stretch  of  fancy,  be  said  to  be 
always  urging  us  to  lay  too  much  stress  upon  dis- 
tinctions— by  which  is  only  meant,  however,  that 


1 66  DISTINCTION 


we  are  prone  to  trust  them  on  occasions  when  they 
do  not  deserve  to  be  trusted. 

In  addition  to  the  hints  already  given  as  to  the 
practical  application  of  these  views,  it  will  be  useful 
further  to  trace  their  influence  more  generally. 
The  chief  field  of  their  application  is  controversy, 
or  discussion  in  the  widest  sense  ;  that  is  to  say, 
discussion  whether  between  opponents  one  of  whom 
asserts  while  the  other  criticises,  or  between  the  as- 
sertive and  the  critical  spirit  within  ourselves.  And 
we  are  now  to  attempt  to  trace  their  consequences 
in  regard  to  the  question  how  an  assertor  can 
escape  from  the  charge  of  trusting  too  much  to  a 
distinction.  I  do  not  wish  to  disregard  the  fact 
that  the  question  '  where  do  you  draw  the  line ' 
can  be  made  exceedingly  awkward  for  the  assertor, 
but  I  wish  to  point  out  a  certain  escape  that  is 
open  to  him  if  he  will  be  content  to  pay  the  un- 
avoidable price.  It  is  in  the  assertor's  natural,  but 
mistaken,  dislike  to  paying  this  price  that  rriuch  of 
the  strength  of  the  Socratic  method  lies. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  only  true  escape  consists 
in  showing  the  irrelevance  of  the  demand  for  de- 
finition where  it  is  really  irrelevant — that  is  to  say, 
in  showing  that  the  admitted  roughness  of  the 
given  distinction  does  not  at  all  affect  some  pur- 


SOME  ILLUSTRATIONS  167 


pose  which  the  assertor  has  in  view.  But  of  course 
there  are  many  conceivable  phrases  which  may  be 
used  for  claiming  this,  and  the  one  which  is  here 
to  be  proposed  will  be  found,  I  hope,  to  be  con- 
venient on  occasion.  It  consists  in  describing  the 
name  whose  definition  is  asked  for  by  an  epithet 
which  contains  in  its  meaning  a  concise  claim  that 
the  demand  is  irrelevant.  What  this  epithet  is  we 
shall  see  in  the  next  chapter  but  one,1  and  we 
shall  also  see  what  concessions  are  involved  in  the 
claim. 

'  See  especially  p.  180. 


CHAPTER   XIV 
'PROPER'  AND  'GENERAL'  NAMES 

THE  student  of  elementary  logic  who  has  learnt 
something  about  definition,  and  about  the  '  conno- 
tation '  and  '  denotation  '  of  names,  knows  why  it 
would  be  absurd  to  ask  for  the  definition  of  some 
'proper'  name  that  occurs  in  an  assertion.  He 
has  learnt  that  if  proper  names  can  be  said  to  have 
a  meaning  at  all,  it  is  a  meaning  of  a  very  different 
kind  from  that  which  '  general '  names  possess  ; 
that  the  former  can,  while  the  latter  cannot,  be 
applied  to  this  or  that  individual  case  without 
regard  to  its  nature ;  and  that  consequently  the 
question  whether  or  no  they  are  correctly  applied 
in  a  given  case  is  to  be  answered  by  reference  to 
wholly  different  considerations.  As  all  agree,  the 
essence  of  the  distinction  between  proper  and 
general  names  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  right  to  a 
given  proper  name  does  not  depend  upon  the  pos- 
session of  any  qualities  that  happen  to  be  meant  by 
the  name.  Peter  is  christened  Peter,  and  rightfully 


' PRO 'PEA"   AND   'GENERAL'  NAMES       169 


keeps  the  name  although  he  be  soft  or  unstable  ; 
Bright  is  born  Bright,  but  dull ;  and  a  name  like 
Sevenoaks  or  Oxford  may  survive  for  hundreds  of 
years  the  fact  which  it  once  described.  Proper 
names,  as  such,  are  only  accidentally  descriptive  ; 
and  though  it  is  true  that  a  descriptive  meaning 
can  often  or  nearly  always  be  traced  in  them,  their 
purpose  and  value  is  independent  of  any  such 
meaning.  General  names,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
always  recognised  as  belonging  to  this  or  that  in- 
dividual case  conditionally  ;  a  geometrical  figure 
is  not  a  square  unless  its  four  sides  are  straight 
lines  and  equal  ;  an  illness  is  only  scarlet  fever  if 
and  so  long  as  such  and  such  symptoms  are 
present.  Always  the  application  of  a  general 
name  to  this  or  that  case  introduces  debatable 
matter.  The  general  name  is  thus  essentially  de- 
scriptive ;  its  applicability  is  dependent  on  the 
existence  of  certain  facts,  and  properly  ceases  as 
soon  as  the  name  fails  to  describe  the  given  case 
correctly  ;  when  the  child  grows  up,  we  say  that 
he  ceases  to  be  a  child. 

But  there  is  one  important  fact  that,  judging 
from  the  text-books,  the  student  of  elementary 
logic  has  small  chance  of  learning,  until,  at  least, 
the  earlier  stages  of  his  study  are  left  far  behind, 
and  that  is,  that  the  distinction  between  proper 


i;o  DISTINCTION 


and  general  names  is  rather  ideal  than  applicable. 
If  we  are  asked  to  say  of  a  given  name  whether  it 
is  proper  or  general,  we  cannot  always  give  a 
decisive  answer  by  mere  inspection  of  the  word 
apart  from  its  context,  but  we  often  require  to  be 
told  how  the  word  is  supposed  to  be  used.  The 
distinction,  in  short,  between  proper  and  general 
names  lies  not  in  the  words  as  such — not  univer- 
sally in  the  form  of  the  words — but  in  the  functions 
they  are  made  to  perform  ;  and  the  same  word 
may  at  any  given  date  be  widely  and  commonly 
used  to  perform  both  functions.  When  I  hear  the 
name  Turkey,  for  instance,  or  Town,  or  Bradshaw, 
nothing  except  the  context  can  tell  me  whether 
the  proper  name  or  the  class-name  is  meant. 

One  explanation  of  this  is  to  be  found  by 
noticing  the  manner  in  which  both  proper  and 
general  names  are  usually  '  invented.'  Since  pre- 
historic times,  most  names,  of  either  kind,  are 
formed  by  a  process  of  adaptation  rather  than  by 
anything  that  more  strictly  deserves  to  be  called 
invention  at  all.  Normally,1  all  proper  names 

1  There  are,  of  course,  many  cases  where  the  general  meaning, 
if  it  ever  existed,  is  lost ;  and  a  few  cases  (e.g.  the  names  which 
children  give  themselves)  where  we  have  reason  to  suppose  that 
there  never  was  a  general  meaning.  But  the  normal  process  of 
giving  a  proper  name  has  certainly  been  that  by  which  schoolboys 
often  invent  nicknames,  the  selection  of  some  marked  characteristic, 
such  as  '  the  measurer '  or  '  the  shiner  '  for  the  moon. 


'PROPER*   AND   '  GENERAL'   NAMES      171 

have  once  been  general,  and  many  general  names 
are  derived  from  proper  names  of  an  earlier  date. 
If  in  some  cases  the  meaning  of  a  proper  name  is 
difficult  or  impossible  to  trace,  yet  in  very  many, 
even  of  the  older  ones  (e.g.  Peter,  and  Bright,  and 
Oxford  ;  or,  again,  Adam  and  Eve),  there  is  no  such 
difficulty.  We  may,  however,  best  see  the  old 
process  now  at  work  in  the  case  of  nicknames,  and, 
in  general,  wherever  our  choice  of  a  name  for  a 
thing  is  most  unshackled  by  custom.  Even  in 
fanciful  names  like  those  we  give  to  our  dogs,  our 
ships,  or  our  houses  (e.g.  Lion,  the  Sea-gull,  Ivy 
Cottage},  there  is  often  an  attempt  to  be  somewhat 
descriptive  ;  in  such  cases  we  often  select  a  proper 
name  from  among  the  class  of  existing  general 
names. 

As  to  the  opposite  movement,  where  proper 
names  have  become  general,  all  language  is  full  of 
examples.  When,  for  instance,  we  say  that  So-and- 
so  is  a  Croesus  or  a  Solomon,  we  have  taken  one 
step  towards  the  making  of  a  general  name  from  a 
proper  one.  Croesus  or  Solomon,  so  used,  would 
be  descriptive,  and  would  only  be  slightly  less 
familiar  in  that  use  than,  for  example,  the  adjec- 
tives Pharisaical  or  laconic,  the  verbs  to  meander, 
to  lynch,  to  tantalise,  or  the  nouns  rodomontade, 
martinet,  philippic,  dunce,  &c.  Sometimes  a  class, 


172  DISTINCTION 


or  kind,  of  things  is  called  from  its  maker  or  finder, 
e.g.  mackintosh,  hansom,  negus,  dahlia ;  some- 
times, like  jersey,  calico,  or  canary,  from  the  place 
whence  it  was  introduced  ;  sometimes,  like  quixot- 
ism, academy,  boycotting,  from  a  resemblance  to 
well-known  examples  in  fiction  or  history ;  and  in 
all  such  cases  it  is  only  by  accident  that  we 
remember  for  any  length  of  time  the  origin  of  the 
name.  The  adjective  maudlin,  for  instance,  has 
perhaps  lost  touch  with  its  origin  more  completely 
than  the  adjective  stoical,  the  substantive  solecism 
more  completely  than  simony,  the  verb  to  canter 
more  completely  than  the  verb  to  jerrymander. 
The  history  of  the  Jill  who  is  supposed  to  have 
given  her  name  to  the  class  of  jilts  has  long  ago 
disappeared  ;  to  the  groom,  phaeton  is  only  the 
name  of  a  kind  of  carriage  ;  and  atlas,  to  many  a 
bookseller,  only  means  a  volume  containing  maps. 
But  although  these  examples  show  that  the 
same  word — the  same  combination  of  sounds  or 
letters—  may  often  be  put  to  either  of  the  two  uses 
indifferently,  yet  we  shall  see  the  reason  more 
forcibly  if  we  take  a  wider  view  of  the  actual 
process  of  using  names.  We  shall  find  that  the 
same  fluidity  of  usage  which  destroys  the  sharp- 
ness of  the  distinction  between  proper  and  general 
names,  when  taken  apart  from  their  context,  invades 


1  PROPER'  AND  'GENERAL'   NAMES      173 

also  other  distinctions  that  are  drawn  between 
kinds  of  words  in  grammar  and  in  elementary 
logic. 

Look,  for  instance,  at  the  verb  and  the  sub- 
stantive. Without  going  back  to  any  speculations 
as  to  whether  the  verbal  or  the  substantival  was 
the  earlier  form  of  the  general  notion,  it  is  plain, 
at  any  rate,  that  in  English  there  is  plenty  of  give 
and  take  between  them.  Existing  verbs,  like  to 
give  and  to  take,  to  grave,  to  rifle,  to  lift,  give  us 
new  substantives  ;  *  existing  substantives,  like 
plunder,  or  smoke,  or  wire?  give  us  new  verbs  ; 
and  in  words  like  guarantee,  or  endeavour,  or 
adventure,  we  find  the  verb  becoming  a  substan- 
tive and  the  subtantive  so  formed  becoming  again 
a  verb.3  The  same  freedom  of  interchange  is 

1  To  say  nothing  of  the  numerous  cases  where  an  English  sub- 
stantive is  formed  from  some  part  of  a  foreign  verb ;  e.g.  exit,  affi- 
davit, fiat,  plaudit,  innuendo,  dividend,  proviso,  restaurant,  sou- 
venir, rendezvous,  ozone,  phenomenon,  &c. 

2  In  the  case  of  smoke  and  wire  slang  has  already  taken  the 
verbs  so  formed  and  has  made  new  substantives  of  them.     We  talk 
of  '  sending  a  wire,'  and  some  people  call  a  cigar  '  a  smoke.' 

3  In  some  cases  the  to-and-fro  movement  is  really  longer.    Thus, 
if  we  accept  Mr.  Skeat's  account,  the  word  guarantee  has  the  fol- 
lowing history.      From  the  old   High  German  verb  warjan,   '  to 
protect,'  came  the  old  French  substantive  war  ant  or  guaiant ;  from 
that  again  the  old  French  verb  garantir,  the  past  participle  of  which 
became  the  noun  guarantie  (or  garrantie},  and  so,   in  time,  the 
English  substantive  guarantee ;  whence  the  English  verb  to  gua- 
rantee was  derived.    Here,  then,  we  have  verb-substantive-verb-sub- 


174  DISTINCTION 


found  also  between  the  substantive  and  the  adjec- 
tive ;  a  considerable  number  of  adjectives  are 
formed  from  substantives,  not  only  by  means  of 
adjectival  endings,  like  noise,  noisy ;  ornament, 
ornamental,  and  so  on,  but  sometimes '  without 
any  change  of  sound  or  spelling,  as  when  monster 
is  used  for  monstrous,  or  two  substantives  are 
put  together,  one  of  which  is  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  adjectival,  as  in  rose  colour,  cavalier  treat- 
ment, drawing-room  music,  court  cards,  crown 
jewels,  field  sports,  jubilee  coins,  &c.  And  on  the 
other  hand  a  great  many  substantives  are  formed 
from  adjectives.  Our  present  English  custom  does 
not,  indeed,  allow  us  to  take  any  adjective  we  please 
and  use  it  by  itself  as  a  subject  term,  but  the 
strictest  grammarian  has  no  objection  to  the  ac- 
complished gradual  change  of  an  adjective  into  a 
substantive,  even  without  any  change  in  its  sound 
or  spelling.  For  instance,  custom  at  present 
forbids  us  to  speak  of  actives  as  a  class,  but  has  no 
objection  to  operatives  or  conservatives  ;  we  may 
speak  of  radicals,  or  of  liberals,  or  of  morals,  but 

stantive-verb,  without  going  further  back  than  about  the  eighth 
century. 

1  These  cases  are  comparatively  rare,  though  greater  freedom  in 
using  abbreviations  would  perhaps  introduce  more  of  them.  As  a 
rule,  in  established  English  the  adjectival  form,  when  later  than 
the  substantival,  is  distinguished  by  the  termination. 


'PROPER'  AND   'GENERAL'  NAMES      175 


not  of  financials,  or  legals,  or  temporals ;  we  may 
speak  of  panic,  or  of  logic,  or  of  music,  but  not  of 
civic ;  and  a  complete  list  of  words,  now  reckoned 
as  substantives,  which  were  properly  adjectival  at 
some  former  time,  would  be  of  surprising  length.1 

When  we  look  at  the  words  alone,  then — at  the 
words  apart  from  the  way  they  are  used  on  the 
special  occasion — the  distinction  between  the  sub- 
stantive and  the  adjective  or  verb  is  not  entirely 
firm  and  binding  anymore  than  that  between  proper 
and  general  names.  Just  as  a  proper  name  may 
become  general,  or  a  general  name  proper,  by  our 
using  it  for  one  or  the  other  purpose,  so  we  may 
make  a  given  word  either  substantival,  adjectival,  or 
verbal.  In  both  cases  it  is  the  way  in  which  the  words 
are  actually  used  that  determines  their  character. 

The  same  is  true,  as  we  have  partly  seen 
already,2  of  the  distinction  between  '  abstract  names' 
and  others.  No  satisfactory  account  can  be  given 
of  this  distinction  by  reference  merely  to  the  out- 
ward form  of  the  word.  We  are  sometimes  told, 


1  A  sufficient  number  may  be  found  even  if  we  look  only  at 
words  of  more  recent  origin,  like  aneroid,  btirlesque,  cordial,  scurvy, 
stout,  &c.,  and  neglect  all  those — like  parasite,  missile,  uniform, 
ague,  fort,  dusk,  pauper,  sovereign,  serjeant,  sloven,  &c. — where  the 
change  from  adjective  to  substantive  was  effected  in  some  earlier 
language  than  ours. 

-  F.  64. 


1 76  DISTINCTION 


for  instance,  that  abstract  nouns  are  those  which 
are  formed   from  verbs  and  adjectives  by  a  slight 
alteration  in  the  form  of    the  word,  such   as  the 
addition  of  some  termination  like  ness,  or  th,  or  ty, 
or  ce,  or  hood,  or  by  using  the  definite  article  with 
the  infinitive   (as   in    Greek    and    German),  or  by 
otherwise  treating  the  infinitive  as  a  noun.     And 
it  is  true  that  a  complete  list  of  the  nouns  by  which 
we  name  attributes  would  probably  show  a  majority 
that  are  distinguished  in  some  such  obvious  manner. 
But  there  are  many  other  cases — e.g.  good  and  evil, 
change  and  decay — where  the  rule  would  be  insuf- 
ficient.    What   is   true    is,   that  the  formation   of 
abstract  names  is  always  a  case  of  using  substan- 
tially a  word  which  has  hitherto  had  other  than 
substantival  uses  ;  and  the  fact  that  we  often  show 
our  intention  by  slightly  altering  the  form  of  the 
word,  is  of  just  the  same  weight  and  relevance  as 
the  fact,  already  noticed,  that  in  forming  an  adjec- 
tive from  a  substantive  we  usually  alter  its  form. 
It  no  more  touches  the  heart  of  the  matter  than 
our  custom  of  advertising  our  births,  deaths,  and 
marriages  affects  the  events  themselves.     What  we 
find  is,  that  just  as  a  given  general  name  may  be 
put  to  service  as  a  proper  name,  or  a  proper  name 
as  general,  just  as  a  substantive   may  be  formed 
from  an  adjective  or  a  verb,  and  a  verb  or  an  adjec- 


1  PROPER '  AND   GENERAL*   NAMES      177 

tive  from  a  substantive,  so  any  name  whatever  may 
be  used  to  express  an  abstraction,  and  after  being 
so  used  may  again  be  pressed  into  service  to  name 
things  that  can  be  seen  or  felt  or  weighed.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  not  only  are  all  our  names  for  im- 
material things  derived  from  names  which  once  had 
a  material  meaning — the  name  spirit,  for  instance, 
was  once,  in  Latin,  the  name  for  breath — but  the 
contrary  process  is  often  to  be  found  in  operation. 
We  should  never  have  had  the  word  dungeon  unless 
the  Romans  had  had  the  abstract  name  dominio, 
nor  dynamite  unless  the  Greeks  had  had  a  certain 
name  for  the  abstract  quality  power. 

These  facts,  it  is  hoped,  though  they  lie  very 
near  the  surface  of  language,  will  be  sufficient  to 
remind  us  that  the  character  of  names  is  not  some- 
thing once  for  all  impressed  upon  them,  but  is 
essentially  dependent  upon  the  uses  to  which  the 
names  are  at  any  time  put.  Words  are  not,  like 
members  of  Oriental  castes,  hopelessly  specialised 
to  this  or  that  service,  but  are  able  within  wide 
limits  to  change  their  trade  on  occasion.  The  in- 
dividual speaker  is  constantly  under  greater  or 
less  temptation  to  effect  these  changes  in  order  to 
serve  a  passing  purpose  ;  and  where  a  large  enough 
number  of  people  find  the  new  usage  convenient 
and  not  too  startling  or  too  little  justified,  it  gradu- 

N 


178  DISTINCTION 


ally  wins  its  way  into  general  favour.  So  it  comes 
about  that  at  any  given  time  new  uses  of  words  are 
to  be  found  at  all  stages  of  the  progress  from  eccen- 
tricity, affectation,  or  slang,  to  a  well-earned  place 
in  the  dictionary.  To  admit  the  fact  of  this  pro- 
gress, even  as  only  occasional,  is  to  admit,  amongst 
other  things,  that  the  received  classification  of 
names  as  '  proper,'  '  general,'  '  abstract,'  &c.,  is  only 
roughly  sound.  Ideally,  the  distinctions  are  perhaps 
perfect ;  that  is  to  say,  they  are  intended  to  mark 
really  important  differences.  But  practically  there 
is  in  each  case  a  doubtful  borderland,  where  great 
and  small  experiments  in  new  usage  are  ever  press- 
ing forward  for  acceptance,  but  are  not  yet  fully 
established  by  custom.  And  at  the  present  stage 
of  our  discussion  there  can  be  nothing  strange  in 
this  ;  it  is  only  one  more  example  of  the  general 
truth  that  our  distinctions  of  all  sorts  are  aimed  at 
clearer  differences  than  the  facts  of  the  world  will 
allow  us  exactly  to  express  by  means  of  them. 
Taken  along  with  the  other  examples  already  given, 
it  may  help  us  to  see  how  often  the  root  or  purpose 
of  a  distinction  is  better  than  its  success  in  dealing 
with  the  medley  and  shifting  mass  of  facts  that 
actually  come  before  us. 


CHAPTER   XV 

'  REFERENCE-NAMES  ' 

IN  order  to  know  for  certain  what  kind  any  given 
name  belongs  to,  its  context  is  all-important.  That 
is  the  lesson  taught  by  the  facts  we  have  noticed 
in  the  preceding  chapter.  Not  the  way  in  which 
words  are  formed  or  spelt  or  pronounced,  but  the 
way  in  which  they  are  used,  is  what  finally  deter- 
mines their  nature ;  for  words  are  instruments  of 
assertion,  and  their  own  nature  varies  in  dependence 
on  what  they  are  meant  to  do.  For  instance,  proper 
names  are  meant  to  refer  to  a  subject,  not  neces- 
sarily to  describe  it ;  and  that  is  why  the  demand 
for  their  definition  is  irrelevant.  Common-sense, 
as  well  as  philosophy,  agrees  that  the  distinction 
between  proper  and  general  names  depends  upon 
what  the  names  are  '  meant  to  do .'  The  difference 
is  that  common-sense,  as  reflected  in  grammar, 
tries  to  apply  the  distinction  by  considering  what 
any  given  name  is  usually  meant  to  do ;  while  philo- 
sophy tries  to  apply  it  with  reference  to  special 

N  2 


i8o  DISTINCTION 


occasions.  And  so  we  are  now  to  ask  what  are  the 
cases  in  which  a  '  general '  name  is  really  '  proper .' 

When  attempts  at  this  kind  of  innovation  are 
made,  the  innovator  has  to  choose  between  two 
evils — between  using  familiar  words  in  an  altered 
sense  and  inventing  new  ones.  If  he  takes  the 
former  alternative,  he  runs  a  risk  of  producing  con- 
fusion, for  old  habits  of  meaning  are  hard  to  change  ; 
if  he  takes  the  latter  alternative — especially  in  a 
subject  like  logic,  where  every  writer  feels  inclined 
to  take  it  and  many  yield  to  the  temptation — he 
runs  a  risk  of  stirring  the  reader's  resentment.  I 
must  choose  the  latter,  however,  as  the  least  of  the 
two  evils,  and  trust  to  be  able  to  disarm  any  just 
resentment,  partly  by  pleading  some  reasons  for  the 
innovation,  and  partly  by  freely  confessing  the  pro- 
cess to  be  in  itself  an  evil.  We  shall,  therefore,  try, 
as  far  as  we  can,  to  keep  the  ordinary  rough  sense 
for  the  words  'proper'  and  '  general '  as  applied  to 
names,  laying  no  stress  upon  that  distinction  ;  the 
distinction  upon  which  we  are  to  lay  all  the  stress 
shall  be  that  between  reference-names  and  descrip- 
tive names  :  by  the  former  being  meant  all  names, 
proper  or  general,  when  and  while  used  for  refer- 
ence ;  and  by  the  latter,  all  names,  proper  or  general, 
when  and  while  used  to  describe  a  nameable  thing. 

In  adopting  this  course  we  are  ourselves  afford- 


^REFERENCE-NAMES'  181 

ing  an  example  of  the  reference-use  of  names. 
The  words  '  proper '  and  '  general '  become  mere 
'  reference-names  '  so  far  as  we  disclaim,  in  using 
them,  the  intention  to  lay  stress  on  the  distinction. 
Not  we,  but  he  who  believes  in  their  strict  applica- 
bility is  the  person  from  whom  a  definition  of 
them  may  be  demanded  ;  for,  in  answer  to  such  a 
demand,  we  have  only  to  say  that  we  do  not  know 
and  do  not  care  :  we  do  not  care  what  they  connote, 
but  only  what  they  denote  ;  we  are  using  them 
just  as  we  might  use  the  names  '  Peter  '  and  '  Paul ' — 
using  them  to  refer  to  actual  cases  agreed  upon. 
The  moment  the  agreement  ceases  we  withdraw 
the  name  and  ask  our  audience  to  substitute  any 
other  name  they  please,  subject  to  the  condition 
that  an  agreement  shall  be  reached  as  to  what  that 
name  denotes. 

When  a  word  is  used  in  this  non-committal 
manner  the  assertor  neither  maintains  nor  disputes 
its  correctness,  but  treats  it  just  as  we  treat  a 
proper  name.  One  name,  he  says  in  effect,  will  do 
as  well  as  another  to  refer  to  the  case  about  which 
we  are  speaking  ;  you  may  call  these  cases  So-and- 
so  if  you  choose ;  I  can  certainly  have  no  objec- 
tion to  that  name  so  long  as  you  leave  it  colour- 
less— so  long  as  you  do  not  use  it  to  prejudice  the 
question  raised.  For  instance,  in  discussing  the 


1 82  DISTINCTION 


relations  between  religion  and  science,  it  is  quite 
possible  for  the  two  opposite  parties  to  speak  of 
scientific  men  or  religious  men  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  these  terms,  even  though  the  one  party  may 
wish  to  assert  in  the  end  that  the  religious  men 
have  the  wider  and  truer  knowledge  of  reality,  or 
the  other  party  to  assert  that  the  scientific  men 
have  the  deeper  and  firmer  religion.  The  open  use 
of  the  epithet  so-called  is  only  a  clumsy  expedient 
for  preventing  either  party  from  using  the  name  to 
beg  the  question.  Between  people  of  fair  intelli- 
gence the  qualification  may  generally  be  under- 
stood. It  is  in  this  way  that  we  may  speak  of  the 
electric  current,  though  we  believe  it  is  not  really  a 
current  at  all  ;  or  of  hydrophobia,  without  supposing 
it  to  imply  a  dread  of  water. 

That  names  with  a  meaning  must  often  be  used 
in  a  colourless  manner  may  be  seen  not  only  by 
remembering  the  fact  already  noticed  that  normally 
all  proper  (or  non-descriptive)  names  have  once 
been  general  (or  descriptive),  but  also  by  asking 
ourselves  how  else  could  either  the  application  or 
the  meaning  of  any  general  name  ever  be  altered. 
If,  for  instance,  certain  chemical  substances  now 
supposed  to  be  elements  are  ever  found  to  be  really 
compounds,  we  thereby  discover  that  some  (so- 
called)  elementary  bodies  are  not  elementary ;  or 


'REFERENCE-NAMES*  183 

if  the  epithet  worthy  changes  its  meaning,  that 
points  to  the  fact  that  some  of  the  so-called  worthy 
people  are  seen  to  be  not  perfectly  worthy  of 
admiration.  Wherever,  in  short,  an  established 
descriptive  name  is  discovered  to  be  not  quite 
rightly  applied  by  custom,  the  proposition  stating 
that  discovery  must  be  a  contradiction  in  terms — 
and  would  be  absurd  in  a  more  effectual  sense  if 
the  mere  words,  instead  of  the  speaker's  meaning, 
could  make  an  assertion  self-contradictory.  It  is 
only,  however,  by  using  the  subject-term  in  a 
colourless  manner  that  we  can  in  these  cases 
escape  real  self-contradiction. 

The  use  of  names  we  are  here  considering 
is  neither  unfamiliar  nor  difficult  to  understand. 
Whenever  a  name  is  used  as  a  mere  subject-term — 
that  is  to  say,  not  as  indicating  (through  the  con- 
notation of  the  name)  what  is  denoted,  but  merely 
referring  to  it,  as,  for  instance,  the  name  '  Trafalgar 
Square  '  refers  to  a  certain  part  of  London,  then 
objections  to  the  use  of  the  name  become  as  trivial 
and  irrelevant  as  the  objection  that  the  angles  of 
Trafalgar  Square  are  not  exactly  right  angles,  nor  its 
sides  exactly  equal ;  and  along  with  the  disarming 
of  such  objections  the  Socratic  method  of  demand- 
ing exact  definition  loses  all  its  point.  So  that  if 
an  assertor  can  make  out  that  a  vague  name  he 


1 84  DISTINCTION 


uses  is  a  '  reference-name '  of  this  description,, 
he  thereby  puts  forward  a  sufficient  excuse  for  its 
vagueness. 

The  question  then  arises,  How  is  the  assertor 
to  support  his  claim  that  a  word  he  uses  is  only  a 
'  reference-name,'  and  so  need  not  be  defined  ?  The 
power  of  pleading  this  excuse  is  a  sort  of  contro- 
versial advantage,  and  as  such  it  must  somehow  be 
paid  for.  The  assertor's  right  to  waive  so  pressing 
a  question  can  hardly  depend  on  a  process  so  easy 
as  that  of  his  merely  calling  the  word  a  '  reference- 
name,'  for  we  are  not  now  laying  down  fanciful 
rules  of  debate,  but  are  seeking  to  extend  and 
generalise  an  already  accepted  practice — a  practice 
which  justifies  itself  to  assertors  and  critics 
equally. 

There  are  various  possible  ways  of  describing 
the  price  that  one  must  always  pay  for  waiving  a 
question,  but  they  may  be  summed  up  in  saying 
that  one  binds  oneself  to  remain,  for  the  occasion, 
wholly  unprejudiced  in  regard  to  it.  That  is  the 
pith  of  the  matter,  whatever  kind  of  question  it  be 
that  is  waived.  And  in  regard  to  the  question  how 
a  term  shall  be  defined,  it  is  the  '  meaning '  (the  con- 
notation or  associations)  of  the  word  which  the 
assertor  who  calls  it  a  reference-name  declares  his 
willingness  to  leave  entirely  out  of  account.  He 


'REFERENCE-NAMES'  185 

thereby  gives  notice  that  he  will  not  take  any  ad- 
vantage of  its  meaning,  will  not  use  it  argumen- 
tatively,  or  beg  any  question  by  means  of  it.  In 
discussing  the  question  whether  science  is  a  true 
guide,  for  instance,  we  must  not  base  our  answer 
on  the  meaning  of  the  word  '  science '  ;  and  the  same 
in  discussing  the  question  whether  a  general  name 
can  be  ever  non-descriptive. 

Let  us  see  more  widely,  however,  what  this 
means  in  practice.  It  means,  in  the  first  place, 
that  he  who  claims  to  use  a  name  for  reference 
only,  thereby  limits  the  purpose  for  which  he  uses 
it.  He  uses  it,  as  the  logicians  say,  to  denote 
only — not  to  connote.  The  essence  of  proper 
names,  as  we  saw  above,  consists  in  the  fact  that 
those  who  use  them  agree  on  their  '  denotation,'  on 
the  individual  things  or  cases  that  the  name  is 
taken  to  apply  to  ;  the  received  application  of  the 
name  '  Trafalgar  Square '  is  clear  enough,  although 
the  Square  may  fail  to  satisfy  the  mathematician's 
ideal.  And  since  the  whole  enquiry  after  exact 
definition  is  casuistical — that  is  to  say,  is  aimed  at 
finding  the  correct  application  !  of  the  name — such 
an  enquiry  naturally  becomes  purposeless  if  the 
application  of  the  name  is  clear,  or  is  taken  for  the 

1  Its  actual,  not  merely  its  ideal,  meaning.  See  pp.  22-28, 
and  Chap.  x. 


1 86  DISTINCTION 


moment  as  clear,  already.  The  occupation  of  the 
critic  is  gone  as  regards  that  name ;  only  that  of 
the  pedant,  or  verbal  purist,  is  relevant 

And  in  the  second  place  it  means  that  the 
assertor  is  willing,  if  required,  to  substitute  the 
contradictory  of  the  name  for  the  name  itself,  non- 
A  for  A,  or  A  for  non-A.1  Nothing  short  of  this 
willingness  can  satisfy  the  critic  that  the  disclaimer 
is  genuine.  Of  course,  however,  there  must  be  no 
question-begging  by  means  of  the  name,  on  either 
side ;  and  whatever  name  be  used  its  denotation  2 
must  be  agreed  upon  ;  if  our  audience  wish  us  to  call 
the  scientific  men  '  the  unscientific'  (or  the  religious 
*  the  irreligious '),  we  may  willingly  yield  the  point 
so  long  as  they  mean  the  same  people  as  we  do, 
and  do  not  try  to  beg  the  question  of  fact  by 
means  of  the  name. 

We  shall  presently  expand  the  meaning  of  these 
brief  statements  with  the  help  of  examples.  Mean- 
while there  is  one  further  general  question  to  raise. 
We  have  seen  how  a  subject-term  may  become  a 
reference-name ;  and,  if  we  assume  for  the  moment 
that  every  term  as  used  in  an  assertion  is  either  a 
subject  or  a  predicate,3  the  question  suggests  itself 

1  Or,  more  simply,  to  withdraw  the  name. 

2  See  p.  100,  note. 

*  Strictly  speaking,  I  consider  this  analysis  insufficient  for  any 


'  REFERENCE-NA  MES '  187 

whether  a  predicate  under  any  circumstances  can 
become  a  reference-name.  I  wish  to  show  that 
predicate-terms  do  essentially  resemble  reference- 
names  in  so  far  as  they  are,  for  a  passing  purpose, 
purely  symbolic. 

The  case  here  referred  to  can,  perhaps,  best  be 
seen  in  its  full  generality  under  the  notion  of  ad- 
missions that  are  made '  for  the  sake  of  argument'— 
an  everyday  practice  enough.  Perhaps  the  best- 
known  occasion  of  such  admission  arises  when  we 
try  to  push  someone  else's  assertion  into  absurd 
consequences,  but  this  is  not  the  only  occasion 
when  it  is  used.  Any  hypothesis  (or  guess,  or 
suggestion,  or  theory)  that  is  started,  whether  in 
science  or  in  casual  conversation,  is  capable  of 
being  put  forward  in  a  more  or  less  tentative  and 
provisional  way  ;  and  the  hostile  critic  obtains  for 
himself  the  greatest  advantage  if  he  can  make  it 
appear  as  put  forward  dogmatically.  It  is  easy  to 
recognise  that  human  theory  is  fallible,  so  long  as 
we  do  not  undertake  to  prove  it  wholly  untrue. 
Certain  Roman  Catholic  opponents  of  Darwin's 
theory,  for  instance,  cleverly  take  this  line.1  But 

thoroughgoing  logic.    But  we  may  adopt  it  here  as  widely  accepted 
and  as  perhaps  sufficient  for  our  immediate  purpose. 

1  Besides  Mr.  St.  G.  Mivart,  whose  writings  are  widely  known, 
the  Rev.  J.  Gerard,  of  Stonyhurst,  has  published  a  most  interesting 
series  of  articles  proving  that  the  natural  selection  theory,  if  treated 


1 88  DISTINCTION 


just  in  the  same  way  as  an  assertor  has  the  right  to 
waive  the  question  how  some  reference-name  shall 
be  denned — that  is  to  say,  by  reducing  the  claim 
that  is  made  by  it — so  the  propounder  of  a  theory 
has  the  right  to  propound  it,  if  he  pleases,  as 
entirely  wanting  in  dogmatic  force.  He  may  say 
in  effect,  '  Let  us  assume  it  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, and  see  what  follows  from  it,  and  how  it 
accords  with  the  facts  we  can  observe.'  It  would 
be  intellectual  slavery  indeed  if  we  were  never 
allowed  to  raise  a  question  till  we  had  found  its 
infallible  answer.  And  the  impersonal  interest  in 
Darwin's  theory,  or  question,  survives  even  the  most 
successful  attempts  to  show  that  some  of  his 
followers — or  even  possibly  Darwin  himself,  when 
off  his  guard — have  been  too  confident.  None  of 
us,  not  even  the  Roman  Catholics,  are  always 
sceptical. 

A  theory  is  in  a  certain  sense  an  assumption. 
It  begs  the  question  in  so  far  as  it  pretends  to  give 
a  dogmatic  answer.  But  an  assumption  may,  of 

as  a  dogma,  breaks  down.  But  he  wrongly  assumes  that  it  must  be 
so  treated.  These  articles  are  well  worth  reading,  if  only  for  the 
wealth  of  close  first-hand  observation  of  Nature  which  they  contain. 
Most  of  them  are  reprinted  in  two  books  entitled  Science  and 
Scientists  and  Science  or  Romance,  published  by  the  Catholic  Truth 
Society.  The  fact  that  Father  Gerard  misunderstands  also  some  of 
the  details  of  the  theory,  does  not  affect  the  more  fundamental  mis- 
understanding which  his  books  are  here  used  to  illustrate. 


'REFERENCE-NAMES*  189 

course,  be  made  by  leave  of  the  persons  addressed, 
and  there  is  no  harm  in  begging  a  question  when 
it  is  done  openly.  Even  a  concession  would  be 
called  an  assumption  with  equal  right.  If  I  concede 
to  your  request  that  the  class  to  which  Professor 
Huxley  belongs  shall  be  called  '  the  unscientific,' 
or  the  class  to  which  Mr.  Gladstone  belongs '  the 
irreligious,'  there  is  just  as  much  (and  just  as 
little)  assumption  in  so  doing  as  in  following  the 
ordinary  practice  of  using  the  names.  And,  simi- 
larly, to  assume  any  theory  purely  for  the  sake 
of  argument  is  the  same  as  to  concede  it,  for  that 
purpose,  to  someone  else. 

In  the  light  of  these  truths  we  may  now  see 
the  only  manner  in  which  a  predicate-term  can 
escape  for  the  moment  the  demand  for  its  defini- 
tion. The  same  idea  is  familiar  enough  to  us  in 
the  shape  of  the  recognition  that  words  have  a 
purely  symbolic  function.  In  mathematics,  and 
outside  mathematics,  we  are  accustomed  to 
manipulate  untranslated  symbols  freely,  leaving 
the  question  how  to  translate  them  until  some 
other  process  has  been  performed.  Symbols  may 
even  stand  for  absurdities  and  yet  be  used 
in  a  process  of  reaching  intelligible  truth.  And 
precisely  the  same  is  true  of  every  predicate-term 
so  far  as  it  is  regarded  for  the  moment  as  merely 


190  DISTINCTION 


the  middle  term  '  of  an  argument — that  is  to  say,  as 
needing  some  major  premiss2  to  show  what  is  really 
intended  in  using  it  as  a  predicate  in  the  given  case. 
If  all  assertion  be  analysed,  as  logic  often  analyses 
it,  into  terms  and  relations  between  those  terms,  then 
we  soon  find  that  enquiries  as  to  the  exact  inter- 
pretation of  given  terms  and  given  relations  not 
only  can  be  conducted  in  complete  independence 
of  each  other,  but  are  best  so  conducted.  And 
this  means  that  in  interpreting  any  predication 
there  is  a  certain  part  of  the  total  process  where  it 
is  a  clear  gain  to  neglect  the  enquiry  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  terms  and  to  concentrate  attention 
on  the  meaning  of  the  relation  asserted.3  For  this 
fleeting  purpose,  then,  a  predicate  may  essentially 
resemble  a  reference-name,  in  the  fact  that  enquiries 
into  its  definition  are  irrelevant. 

But  a  difference  so  subtle  as  that  between  the 
dogmatic  and  the  undogmatic  use  of  names 
requires  illustration  in  order  that  the  use  of  the 
distinction  may  be  fully  seen.  And  some  examples 
can  be  given  in  the  course  of  considering  generally 
the  criticism  of  distinctions  in  relation  to  belief. 
To  this,  therefore,  we  may  now  pass  on. 

1  See  Appendix,  p.  267.  -  Ibid. 

8  The  old  logical  distinction  between  the  formal  and  the  material 
validity  of  deductive  reasoning  was  itself  an  early,  if  too  special, 
recognition  of  this  widely  general  truth. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

THE  CRITICISM  OF  DISTINCTIONS   IN   RELATION 
TO   BELIEF 

THE  word  logic  is  as  hard  to  define  as  the  word 
philosophy,  and  for  the  same  reason  :  we  are  all  of 
us  always  logical — imperfectly,  and  none  of  us  ever 
logical — perfectly.  Yet  we  mostly  agree  that,  just  as 
the  criticism  of  assumptions  is  the  specially  philoso- 
phical function,  so  the  criticism  of  beliefs  (or  '  judg- 
ments') is  the  specially  logical  one.  And  in  adopting 
this  view  I  make  no  pretence  of  drawing  a  line 
between  assumption  and  belief;  by  assumptions 
I  mean  here  only  the  deeper  and  more  ingrained 
beliefs  ;  and  if  any  reader  requires  it  I  must,  therefore, 
concede  that  logic  and  philosophy  are  one. 

It  is  far  from  an  easy  matter  to  reduce  to 
order,  for  purposes  of  general  survey,  the  vast 
variety  of  occasions  on  which  logic,  so  understood, 
comes  into  operation  ;  and  especially  if  we  admit, 
as  I  am  willing  to  do,  that  in  all  actual  thought, 
however  apparently  unchecked,  there  may  be  some 


1 92  DISTINCTION 


conflict  between  the  assertive  and  the  critical  spirit. 
Nevertheless,  we  can  simplify  the  task  by  turn- 
ing attention  to  the  openly  controversial  side  of 
thought,  where  the  struggle  between  assertion  and 
doubt  passes  out  of  the  unreflective  or  tacit  stage  and 
becomes  conscious  of  itself.  We  may  set  up  the  aim 
at  understanding  the  nature  and  rights  of  objection 
generally.  This  includes  both  the  attack  on  beliefs 
and  their  defence,  since  we  cannot  defend  an  attacked 
belief  without  thereby  objecting  to  the  attack. 

When  we  object  to  our  neighbour's  opinion  we 
sometimes  take  the  cautious  line  of  asking  him 
for  the  grounds  of  it,  or  (what  comes  in  the  end  to 
the  same  demand)  asking  him  to  define  the  mean- 
ing of  his  assertion  clearly  ;  but  often  enough  we 
risk  a  gratuitous  opinion  of  our  own  as  to  the 
cause  of  his  error.  And  in  the  long  course  of  the 
history  of  logic  a  great  many  names  of  special 
fallacies  have  been  invented,  some  of  which — for 
example,  'begging  the  question' — may  doubtless 
be  useful  on  occasion.  I  do  not,  however,  propose 
to  offer  any  remarks  on  these,  since  the  method  of 
asking  for  proof  (or  for  definition)  is  exhaustive, 
while  the  attempt  to  specify  the  error  committed 
is  not  so ;  and  besides,  it  is  much  more  easy  to 
accuse  your  opponent  of  committing  some  special 
fallacy  than  to  be  perfectly  sure  that  the  accusa- 


THE  CRITICISM  OF  DISTINCTIONS        193 


tion  is  a  just  one.  At  any  rate,  it  is  only  your 
opinion  against  his,  and  no  general  rules  can 
decide  between  you.  The  special  assertion  or 
argument  depends  on  the  whole  of  its  context. 

At  the  beginning  of  Chapter  X.  the  assertion 
was  made,  in  passing,  that  '  all  criticism  of  judg- 
ment is  criticism  of  distinction  ; '  and  we  noticed 
there  the  reason  why  common-sense  is  not  inclined 
to  adopt  this  view.  The  criticism  of  distinctions 
in  its  most  direct  form,  at  least,  is  apt  to  seem 
rather  wordy  and  frivolous  when  applied  to  beliefs 
about  matters  of  fact,  however  well  suited  it  may 
be  to  the  discussion  of  ideals  like  justice  or  culture. 
If  we  want  to  dispute  an  assertion,  for  instance, 
that  the  prisoner  did  the  deed,  or  that  the  moon 
has  such  and  such  an  influence  on  the  tides  or  on 
the  weather,  we  generally  do  not  find  the  terms  of 
the  judgment  ambiguous,  but  we  ask  how  the 
judgment  as  a  whole  accords  with  other  facts. 
The  moon,  the  tides,  the  weather — as  a  rule  people 
agree  sufficiently  as  to  the  facts  these  names  refer 
to  ;  and  a  critic  who  took  the  line  of  disputing 
their  interpretation  would  generally  be  thought  to 
be  quibbling,  and  quibbling  weakly — trying  to 
bolster  up  a  desperate  case. 

Two  things  should  be  noticed,  however.     One 
is,  that  we  cannot  pretend  to  press  the  distinction 

o 


194  DISTINCTION 


between  matters  of  fact  and  matters  of  theory  or 
opinion  ;  we  can  only  use  it  by  leave,  and  for 
strictly  limited  purposes.  And  the  other  is,  that 
even  where  we  take  the  meaning  of  the  terms  of 
an  assertion  as  agreed  upon,  yet  the  exact  relation 
asserted  between  the  terms  is  often  conceived  with 
vagueness.  The  notion  that  A  caused  (or  generally 
causes)  B  is  by  no  means  so  simple  as  it  seems  on 
the  surface.  As  will  presently  be  shown,  there  is 
plenty  of  room  in  it  for  difficulties  as  to  its  precise 
interpretation. 

The  bearing  of  the  first  of  these  two -admissions 
on  the  criticism  of  beliefs  may  be  shortly  stated 
as  follows  : — Since  questions  of  fact  are  in  the  end 
questions  as  to  the  exact  nature  of  a  fact,  they  are 
always  questions  as  to  whether  a  fact  is  correctly 
conceived  or  described.  There  is  no  dispute,  for 
instance,  that  a  ghost-seer  or  a  person  in  delirium 
tremens  has  some  sort  of  vision  ;  the  only  question 
is,  whether  what  he  '  sees  '  is  correctly  conceived  or 
described.  So  that,  on  philosophical  grounds,  it  is 
better  to  recognise  that  all  questions  are  really 
questions  of  theory  or  opinion,  some  being  acci- 
dentally more  easy  to  settle  than  others,  and  these 
being  loosely  called  questions  of  fact.  At  any  rate 
an  asserted  fact  cannot,  on  the  mere  ground  that 
it  is  '  fact '  and  not  '  theory,'  escape  criticism  as 


THE  CRITICISM  OF  DISTINCTIONS        195 

regards  the  exact  conception  of  it ;  rather,  it  is 
where  we  agree  to  waive  such  criticism  that  we  call 
it  a  '  fact.'  And  if  all  questions  are  really  questions 
of  opinion — i.e.  of  the  way  in  which  some  fact  is 
conceived — then  all  objections  whatever  to  any 
judgment,  whether  of  fact  or  theory,  may  be 
viewed  as  complaining  that  the  conception — and 
so  the  meaning  of  the  assertion— is  not  clear. 
The  truth  or  falsity  of  an  assertion  does  not,  then, 
attach  to  the  words  in  which  the  assertion  is  ex- 
pressed, but  to  the  meaning  they  are  intended  or 
taken  to  bear.  Just  as  every  '  fact '  really  is  a  fact 
of  some  sort,  so  every  belief  is  an  attempt  to  see  a 
truth  which  is  really  there  to  be  seen  if  our  minds 
could  see  it  The  believer,  as  a  rule,  '  means  not, 
but  blunders  round  about  a  meaning ' ; 1  and  the 
important  question  is,  how  far  his  meaning,  such  as 
it  is,  falls  short  of  the  truth  of  the  matter.  So 
that  to  question  the  truth  of  an  assertion  is  to  ask  the 
assertor  exactly  what  his  meaning  is,  and  to  ask  this 
is  a  way  of  questioning  the  truth  of  what  he  asserts. 
The  demand  for  strict  definition  of  the  terms  is, 
therefore,  only  not  pressed  when  the  critic  thinks 
he  sees  a  worse  ambiguity,  a  more  important 
vagueness  of  conception,  in  the  relation  said  to 
exist  between  the  terms.  And  it  is  an  accident — 

1  Pope  :  Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot, 

O  2 


196  DISTINCTION 


that  is  to  say,  it  depends  on  the  controversial 
needs  of  the  moment,  as  they  appear  to  the  critic — 
whether  the  attack  upon  the  way  a  causal  relation 
is  conceived  shall  take  the  form  of  an  enquiry 
after  a  dividing-line  or  not.  It  can  always  take 
this  form,  although,  for  the  sake  of  rhetorical  effect, 
some  other  form  often  seems  better,  as  being  more 
direct  and  less  elementary.  But  even  in  this  latter 
case  it  may  be  a  gain  to  the  critic  to  know  the 
rights  of  the  more  elementary  attack.  Let  us,, 
therefore,  ask  in  what  sense  it  is  true  that  all 
assertion  of  causation  is  liable  to  ambiguity. 

In  order  to  make  this  clear  we  have  only  to 
remember  that  reasons  for  deciding  in  favour  of  any 
theory  are  always,  when  closely  looked  at,  reasons 
for  deciding  against  some  one  or  more  alternative 
theories ;  just  as  reasons  for  deciding  in  favour  of 
any  one  predicate  are  reasons  for  deciding  against 
some  one  or  more  alternative  predicates :  so  that 
in  either  case  the  question  what  exactly  is  the 
assertion  is  of  extreme  importance  before  the 
question  as  to  proof  takes  definite  shape,  and  is 
thus  bound  up  with  the  question  as  to  proof  indis- 
solubly.  For  instance,  the  modes  in  which  two 
'  things '  (or  qualities  or  events)  may  possibly  be 
related  to  each  other  in  causation  are  so  various 
and  subtle  that  the  value  of  any  such  assertion, 


THE   CRITICISM  OF  DISTINCTIONS       197 

where  the  things  related  are  unambiguously  de- 
scribed, mainly  depends  upon  the  fulness  of  detail 
with  which  in  the  special  case  the  relation  is 
conceived.  An  assertion  that  goes  no  further 
than  that  the  two  things  in  question  are  somehow 
connected,  either  contains  beneath  its  surface  a 
hint  as  to  the  kind  of  connection  supposed  to 
^xist,  or  else  it  tells  us  nothing  at  all.  In  a  uni- 
verse such  as  science  supposes  ours  to  be,  all  actual 
events  are  somehow  connected  ;  so  that  the  origin 
of  any  '  thing '  and  the  origin  of  any  quality  of 
that  thing  are  (since  all  origins  are  events)  some- 
how linked  to  that  of  anything  else  we  choose  to 
mention.  It  is  a  truism,  therefore,  to  say  that  A 
and  B  are  '  somehow  connected,'  if  this  be 
literally  meant ;  the  only  problem  of  theoretical 
and  practical  interest  is  as  to  the  exact  nature  of 
their  connection.  Is  the  dependence  (or  repulsion) 
between  them  mutual  or  one-sided  ?  Is  it  direct 
or  indirect  ;  and,  if  indirect,  what  are  the  steps  left 
out  ?  Under  what  conditions  may  the  presence 
or  absence  of  one  be  regarded  as  a  sign  of  the 
presence  or  absence  of  the  other  ?  These  and 
similar  questions,  and  the  answers  we  give  to  them 
or  suggest,  are  what  fill  out  the  meaning  and 
create  the  value  of  our  otherwise  empty  assertion 
that  A  and  B  are  '  connected.' 


198  DISTINCTION 


But,  however  we  picture  the  connection  in  the 
special  case,  we  are  apt  to  do  some  violence,  in  ideaf 
to  the  fluent  transitions  of  Nature.  If  Nature  is,, 
as  we  all  in  our  reasoning  moods  admit,  a  seamless 
fabric — a  process  that  never  really  makes  a  leap, 
though  it  often  seems  to  do  so,  then  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  '  direct '  causation  between  any 
things  or  events  as  named  ;  there  are  always  inter- 
mediate steps  that  either  our  clumsy  observation 
overlooks  or  our  practical  aims  forbid  us  to  notice. 
So  that  wherever  we  claim  to  see  direct  connection 
a  distinction  is  implied  where  no  real  gap  exists — 
a  distinction  which  is  artificial  in  the  sense  that 
man's  vision,  limited  either  against  or  by  his  will,, 
has  drawn  it  in  seamless  Nature.1 

All  judgment,  all  belief,  thus  bases  itself  upon 
alternatives  that  are  used  as  such.  Whether  we 
regard  assertion  as  predication  of  an  attribute  or 
as  having  reference  to  causation,  the  dependence 
upon  alternatives,  for  meaning,  is  the  same.  The 
reduction  of  all  judgment  to  predication  is  very 
familiar  to  readers  of  logical  text-books,  and  when 

1  An  assertion,  e.g.,  that  X  is  directly  the  cause  of  Y,  loses  its 
value  if  X  is  admittedly  only  related  to  Y  as  the  bud  to  the  flower  : 
in  poetry  perhaps  we  can  speak  of  the  child  being  father  to  the 
man,  but  science  rather  regards  childhood  and  manhood  as  roughly- 
marked  stages  in  a  course  of  development  of  which  we  have  not  yet 
understood  the  really  initial  impulse. 


THE   CRITICISM  OF  DISTINCTIONS        199 

it  is  so  reduced  it  is  easy  to  see  (as  we  saw  in 
Chapter  IX.)  that  the  meaning  of  the  predicate-term 
depends  on  our  taking  that  term,  and  its  contra- 
dictory, as  sharp-cut  alternatives.  And  the  reduc- 
tion of  all  judgment  to  judgment  about  causation 
is  equally  sound  and  even  more  useful.  To  pre- 
dicate is  to  say  something  about  the  '  nature '  of 
the  subject ;  but  the  nature  of  any  subject  consists 
in  its  relations  to  other  things — its  origin,  and  the 
way  it  behaves  to  its  surroundings.  If  we  call  a 
man  a  hero  or  a  rascal,  we  mean  that  he  may  be 
expected  to  behave  in  certain  ways.  The  full 
meaning,  therefore,  of  any  predicate  can  only  be 
seen  in  the  light  of  full  knowledge  of  causation, 
and  the  closer  we  press  enquiry  into  its  meaning, 
the  more  we  are  thrown  back  upon  causal  enquiry. 
Predicates  are  thus  only  shorthand  registers  of 
causal  assertion. 

It  will  possibly  help  to  clear  up  some  almost 
unavoidable  difficulties  of  expressions  in  what  has 
been  said  above,  if  we  notice  that  unreal  distinctness 
may  always  be  viewed  as  the  neglect  of  a  midway 
alternative.  If  A  and  non-A  are  only  roughly 
distinct,  that  means  that  between  them  lies  the 
third  possibility,  '  both  at  once.'  The  use  of  this 
view  of  the  matter  is  in  connection  with  the  attack 
on  judgments  generally.  In  all  judgments  as  to 


200  DISTINCTION 


the  nature  or  the  cause  of  a  fact  we  proceed  to  a 
more  or  less  firm  and  final  conclusion  by  means  of 
a  gradual  weeding  out  of  faulty  alternative  theories. 
After  one  or  more  possible  alternatives  are  dis- 
carded we  conclude  that  what  remains  is  the 
essence  or  the  cause  ;  only,  we  often  have  a  too 
limited  vision  of  what  remains.  And  one  of  the 
commonest  causes  of  such  limited  vision  is  the 
clear  and  sharp  separation  of  alternatives  that  in 
reality  overlap,  thus  forming  a  midway  alternative 
between  the  two  extremes  ;  all  judgments  based 
upon  the  distinction  are  liable  to  be  correspondingly 
incomplete. 

If  we  admit  that  all  judgment  thus  lies  open 
to  an  attack  the  result  of  which  may  be  foretold 
by  anyone  who  sees  that  Nature  is  continuous,  we 
are  getting  very  near  universal  scepticism.  And, 
indeed,  one  main  purpose  of  our  enquiry  was  to 
raise  at  the  end  the  question  how  far  reasoned 
doubt  must  triumph  over  certainty,  and  whether  a 
casuistic  treatment  of  definitions  need  or  need  not 
eat  the  heart  out  of  the  faiths  we  live  by.  The 
next  chapter  attempts  to  discuss  this  question 
in  the  light  of  the  notion  of  '  reference-names.' 
Meanwhile  it  only  remains  to  notice  here  that 
logical  criticism  depends  on  two  suppositions — 
that  a  definite  meaning  is  intended  by  the  assertor, 


THE  CRITICISM  OF  DISTINCTIONS       201 

and  that  what  is  said  is  put  forward  as  reason- 
able. Logical  criticism  is  at  once  disarmed  if  the 
assertor  refuses  to  allow  the  critic  to  -make  these 
two  assumptions  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  the  assertor 
admits  that  he  is  only  talking  vaguely,  or  that 
what  he  asserts  is  not  a  reasoned  judgment. 
But  in  practice  assertors  are  slow  to  make  such 
admissions,  unless  they  are  driven  to  it.  As  a  rule 
they  preserve  as  long  as  they  can  the  appearance 
of  knowing  clearly  what  their  own  assertion  means, 
and  of  having  some  intelligible  ground  for  believing 
it ;  which  is  only  natural — for  although  by  admit- 
ting that  your  assertion  is  meaningless  or  ground- 
less you  take  the  wind  out  of  the  critic's  sails,  you 
do  not  thereby  convince  the  audience  that  your 
assertion  is  true. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION 

BY  '  scepticism '  is  not  here  meant  any  merely 
theological  unbelief,  but  something  more  wide 
reaching ;  a  mental  state  which  certainly  includes 
theological  unbelief,  but  which  brings  with  it  far 
more  danger  to  mind  and  character.  For  there  have 
been  notable  exceptions  to  the  rule  (if  it  be  a  rule) 
that  heretics  and  (  unbelievers '  are  lax,  or  deficient 
in  moral  fibre  or  in  mental  receptivity  and  effective- 
ness, and  even  among  our  less  notable  friends  some 
of  us  may  know  unorthodox  people  whose  charac- 
ters are  strong  and  healthy  and  whose  minds  are 
clear.  It  lies  out  of  our  way,  at  any  rate,  to  raise 
any  questions  here  about  theological,  as  distinct 
from  general,  scepticism. 

And  scepticism  in  the  sense  in  which  some  ot 
its  opponents  try  to  define  the  term  lies  equally 
out  of  our  way.  A  scepticism  which  can  erect  itself 
into  a  system  is  already  something  other  than 
sceptical  ;  it  is  too  self-satisfied  to  deserve  the 


SCEPTICISM  AND  CONCILIATION         203 

name  it  assumes.  We  are  none  of  us  always  and 
only  sceptical.  That  is  why  there  is  an  air  of  the 
playground  about  the  proposal  that  scepticism  pure 
and  simple  should  be  adopted  as  a  philosophy. 
The  proposal  so  made  is  felt  to  be  unpractical 
and  only  half-serious,  a  debating-society  question, 
useful  at  most  for  the  exercise  of  thought  it  affords. 
Sooner  or  later  the  artificial  sceptic  of  this  kind 
lays  himself  open  to  a  tu  quoque  retort ;  and  hence 
the  recognised  answer  to  any  of  the  philosophical 
systems  of  scepticism  is  homoeopathic,  and  consists 
in  showing  that  they  are  not  so  sceptical,  after  all, 
as  their  authors  fancy  they  are.  They  pull  down 
certain  assumptions  indeed,  but  only  by  the  help 
of  other  assumptions  which  are  quite  as  hard  to 
justify.  It  would  be  very  convenient  for  the 
opponents  of  scepticism  if  these  were  the  only 
sceptics  that  had  to  be  taken  into  account.  As 
things  are,  the  doctrine  that  scepticism  'casts  itself 
out '  is  not  so  destructive  to  scepticism  as  it  at  first 
appears.  The  genuine  sceptic  may  claim  with  equal 
right  that  the  supposed  remedy  is  more  sceptical 
than  it  pretends  to  be ;  that  it  supports  his  idea,  but 
only  destroys  his  imperfect  realisation  of  it. 

Scepticism  in  its  most  complete  and  genuine 
form  is  the  spirit  that  questions,  not  the  spirit  that 
denies.  For  immediate  practical  purposes  it  may 


204  DISTINCTION 


be  much  the  same  whether  we  doubt  a  belief  or 
deny  it,  but  there  is  a  great  difference  in  the  con- 
troversial strength  of  the  two  positions,  and  conse- 
quently in  the  ease  with  which  a  remedy  can  be 
found.  He  who  denies  may  be  met  with  the  very 
same  weapons  that  the  doubter  uses  against  asser- 
tion generally  :  there  is  far  more  kinship  between 
assertion  and  denial  than  between  either  of  them 
and  doubt.  Doubt  is  a  more  pressing  trouble 
nowadays  than  denial,  and  seems  to  be  part  of  the 
price  we  are  paying  for  the  recent  advances  of 
science.  How  far  the  mental  state  may  be  also 
due  to  bodily  causes  I  do  not  here  enquire,  nor 
whether  a  mental  sickness  hangs  over  our  times, 
as  over  certain  former  times,  like  some  mys- 
terious epidemic.  Assertions  of  this  sort  are  easy 
to  make  or  deny,  but  hard  to  prove  or  disprove. 
And  though  much  of  the  malady  be  laid  to  the 
account  of  causes  such  as  these,  external  to  the 
mind  of  the  person  affected,  yet  it  seems  reasonable 
to  hope  that  something  may  also  be  done  towards 
finding  a  remedy  by  way  of  an  appeal  to  the  scep- 
tical mind  itself. 

As  we  have  now  sufficiently  noticed,  the  special 
feature  or  symptom  of  the  disease  in  question  is 
casuistry — by  which  is  meant  not  only  moral 
casuistry,  not  only  the  raising  of  difficult  questions 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION         205 


of  detail  in  regard  to  moral  rules,  but  the  tendency 
to  compare  general  laws  and  general  notions  with 
concrete  cases  wherever  the  former  are  found — an 
unquiet  spirit  that  is  always  asking  where  the  line 
shall  be  drawn,  and  whether  this  or  that  case  comes 
under  a  given  name.  Moral  casuistry  is,  no  doubt, 
the  most  familiar  work  of  scepticism  ;  our  reasons 
for  conduct  are  a  favourite  target  for  the  spirit  that 
doubts.  Why  should  we  do  this  or  that  disagree- 
able duty  ?  Perhaps  we  are  foolishly  ascetic  in 
supposing  it  a  duty  at  all — are  cutting  ourselves 
off  from  innocent  amusements  just  as  the  people  do 
who  think  it  wrong  to  whistle  a  tune  on  Sunday. 
Follow  the  voice  of  conscience  ?  '  Ah  !  if  only  I 
could  learn  to  hear  it  unmistakably.  But  I  find 
that  other  voices  always  mingle  with  it — the  voice 
of  pride,  for  instance,  and  that  of  fear,  and  of  many 
other  faulty  human  qualities  that  belong  to  my 
nature  and  will  never  be  rooted  out.  Give  me 
more  light,  if  you  can  ;  but  do  not  tell  me  to  follow 
what  seems  the  voice  of  conscience,  for  I  am  not 
wholly  divine.'  In  some  such  way  doubt  attacks 
at  times  even  the  best  of  our  moral  rules,  but  its 
influence  extends  also  beyond  morality.  The 
notion  that  Nature  is  continuous  and  that  the  lines 
that  language  draws  are  artificial,  has  certainly 
taken  root  more  strongly  in  the  minds  of  the 


DISTINCTION 


present  generation  than  ever  before,  and  by  its  aid 
the  answer  '  yes  '  and  the  answer  '  no '  to  any  ques- 
tion can  be  drawn  so  close  together  that  each  of 
them  fails  to  get  a  sharp  background  of  meaning 
for  itself.  Much  of  the  virility  of  our  beliefs 
may  thus  be  lost,  whatever  their  subject-matter. 
When  our  '  yes '  and  our  '  no  '  are  one,  it  ceases  to 
make  any  difference  which  we  answer. 

Although,  as  we  saw  above,1  the  call  for  a  de- 
finition is  in  the  end  the  same  as  the  call  for 
grounds  of  belief,  yet  the  spirit  of  doubt  sometimes 
prefers  to  show  itself  in  the  latter  form.  It  is  often 
easy,  in  this  form  also,  to  raise  questions  that  cannot 
be  answered  finally,  or  can  only  be  answered  by 
the  brute  force  of  assertion.  Is  there  not,  at  least, 
'  room  for  error '  in  this  or  that  belief,  the  sceptical 
mind  enquires  ?  is  there  anything — anything  what- 
ever— about  which  the  individual  is  not  liable  to 
be  deceived  ?  Is  any  '  fact '  pure  fact  ?  does  not 
all  observation  contain  an  admixture  of  human 
and  fallible  theory  ?  Can  we  get  outside  ourselves 
and  see  things  as  they  really  are,  instead  of  as  we 
are  compelled  to  see  them  through  the  spectacles 
which  nature  or  custom  has  provided — nature 
whose  instruments  are  all  progressive  and  improv- 
able ;  custom  whose  power  is  local,  and  subject  to 

1  Chapters  x.  and  xvi. 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION        207 

human  caprice  ?  Are  not  truth  and  falsity  ideals  ; 
who  can  say  that  they  are  ever  perfectly  realised 
in  this  or  that  actual  belief?  Is  there  any  limit, 
other  than  a  merely  practical  one — if  even  that — 
to  the  wisdom  of  reserving  our  judgment  on  a 
given  point  ? 

Put  forward  thus,  undogmatically,  in  the  form 
of  a  question,  such  doubts  are  hard  to  conquer. 
The  old  and  easy  plan  of  arguing  that  if  nothing 
can  be  known  for  certain,  then  it  cannot  be  known 
for  certain  that  nothing  can  be  known,  falls  here 
beside  the  mark.  The  sceptic  of  the  more  modern 
type  does  not  assert  that  nothing  can  be  known  ; 
he  is  content  to  ask  what  is  known.  Help  me  to  find 
a  single  instance,  he  pleads,  of  an  undeniable  truth 
which  is  not  merely  a  truism.  Most  of  our  sup- 
posed laws,  or  uniformities  in  Nature,  are  admittedly 
only  approximate ;  but  even  of  the  least  deniable 
of  them,  such  as  the  law  of  gravitation,  can  we  say 
more  than  that  they  are  proved  by  experience,  and 
that  a  wider  experience  may  show  them  to  be  of 
only  limited  truth  and  value  ?  The  sceptic's  busi- 
ness is  not  to  deny  accepted  truths,  but  to  seek  for 
their  explanation,  and  so  to  secure  them,  if  possible, 
against  the  charge  of  being  '  merely  empirical.' 
But  he  cannot  be  content  with  the  false  security 
that  comes  of  reducing  the  truth  to  a  truism,  nor 


208  DISTINCTION 


yet  with  reliance  upon  the  help  of  notions — such 
as  causation — which  themselves  get  their  security  ' 
in  the  same  manner.     State  the  law  of  causation  in 
any  way  that  is   not  truistic,  and   the  sceptic  is 
ready  to  show  us  how  insecure  it  is.     Frame  any 
natural   law   without   reference  to  causation,  and 
he  is  ready  to  show  us  that  it  is  merely  empirical. 
By  an   '  empirical '  generalisation  he   means   one 
that  rests  on  mere  number  of  observations.    Where 
a  generalisation  is  thus  supported  it  remains  pos- 
sible that  all  the  cases  observed  are  under  some 
limitation  or  condition  which  makes  an  essential 
difference.     However    many  samples  of  sea-water 
I   taste   I   shall  never  justify  the   induction   that 
'  all   water '  is   salt.     It  is  a  truism   to   say   that 
we  must  multiply  observations  '  as  far  as  the  case 
requires '  ;  this,  no  doubt,  the  often-quoted  king  of 
Siam  thought  he  had   done  when  his  experience 
led  him  to  conclude  that  water  could  never  freeze. 
How,  then,  can  we,  the  sceptic   asks,  make  our 
'  truths '  secure  on  all  sides  against  reversal  ?     We 
are  constantly  finding  that  our  views  of  the  truth 
have  been  too  simple,  too  abstract ;  that  something 
which  we  have  believed  to  be  true  absolutely,  or 
on  all  occasions,  is  only  conditionally  true — true  on 
a  certain  set  of  occasions,  or  true  when  certain 

1  See  p.  127. 


SCEPTICISM  AND  CONCILIATION         209 

circumstances,  apparently  insignificant  but  really 
essential,  are  present ;  we  are  constantly  finding 
that  owing  to  some  detail  that  has  been  overlooked, 
some  unwarranted  assumption  that  has  been  made, 
our  answer  '  yes '  to  some  question  requires  to  be 
altered  into  the  opposite  answer, '  no.'  It  is  always 
easy  to  raise  the  sceptical  question.  Where,  then, 
is  the  process  to  stop  ? 

To  anyone  who  adopts  in  the  main  the  views 
suggested  in  the  preceding  chapters,  it  must  seem 
likely  that  the  next  movement  in  philosophy  will 
pay  more  attention  than  has  hitherto  been  paid  to 
the  shortcomings  of  language  as  an  instrument  of 
thought.  Even  our  most  philosophical  questions 
must,  after  all,  be  stated  in  language,  if  they  are  to 
raise  any  interest,  or  serve  any  purpose,  outside 
the  solitary  and  dreaming  mind  ;  indeed,  they  can 
hardly  be  called  questions,  even  to  the  solitary 
seer,  so  long  as  their  answers  escape  formulation 
and  appear  only  as  passing  glimpses  of  hardly  com- 
prehensible truth.  Few  must  be  the  philosophers 
who  are  wholly  unaware  of  the  danger  of  encourag- 
ing mystical  insight,  and  when  they  forget  it  for  a 
moment  the  rest  of  the  world  are  ready  enough  to 
apply  the  common-sense  remedy.  Wherever  lan- 
guage is  used,  it  is  to  the  intelligible  conditions  of 
the  use  of  language  that  we  must  make  appeal. 

P 


2io  DISTINCTION 


Of  course  it  is  easy  to  say  that  question-raising 
must  stop  at  the  point  where  questions  become 
unintelligible.  The  difficulty  is  to  find  that  point, 
or  at  least  to  find  it  to  our  neighbours'  satisfaction 
as  well  as  our  own.  Our  neighbour  who  uses  a 
phrase  that  we  find  unintelligible  may  rightly  think 
that  the  fault  lies  with  us  and  not  with  the  phrase  j 
or  we,  who  discover  an  ambiguity  that  his  clumsier 
vision  overlooks,  may  be  right  in  calling  attention 
to  it.  Some  people  find  it  impossible,  for  instance, 
to  answer  the  question  whether  '  Nature '  can  be 
spoken  of  as  something  real,  or  whether  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  the  '  Luck  '  that  gamblers  believe  in, 
until  the  terms  of  the  question  have  been  purged 
from  ambiguity ;  but  anyone  who  confidently 
answers  'yes'  (or 'no')  to  such  a  question  will  natu- 
rally think  them  only  quibblers.  Which  party  is 
in  the  right  ? 

If  we  were  only  infallible,  or  if  only  we  had  an 
infallible  authority  to  appeal  to,  how  convenient  it 
would  be  !  But  the  old  centres  of  authority  notori- 
ously do  not  satisfy  everyone,  and  when  we  attempt 
to  set  up  new  ones  the  disputability  of  the  claim  is 
even  more  likely  to  be  forced  upon  our  notice.  As 
things  are,  it  seems  that  we  can  only  choose  between 
two  courses  with  any  hope  of  satisfaction  :  we  may 
either  assume  that,  though  not  exactly  infallible, 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION         211 

we  ourselves  are  as  a  matter  of  accident  always 
right  and  our  neighbours  always  wrong,  or  we 
may  seek  for  agreement  somewhere  with  our 
neighbours,  using  that  as  a  point  of  departure  '  for 
the  sake  of  argument.'  It  is  this  latter  course  that 
I  wish  here  to  explain  and  defend. 

The  method  is  simple  enough,  though  not  yet 
very  familiar.  In  one  important  respect  it  is  the 
opposite  of  the  controversial  method  which  we  all 
know  so  well.  It  aims  at  conciliation  ;  it  proceeds 
by  making  the  best  of  our  opponent's  case,  instead 
of  taking  him  at  his  worst.1  Already  there  are 
signs  of  increased  readiness  to  try  this  plan.  It  is 
felt,  and  especially  by  those  who  are  most  experi- 
enced in  the  possibilities  of  controversy,  that  the 
old  game  of  '  idealisation  and  caricature '  is  one 
that  both  sides  can  play  at  for  ever  ;  that  the  prac- 
tice of  scolding  and  calling  names,  politely  or 
otherwise,  leads  to  no  conviction  ;  that  the  most 
interesting  part  of  every  disputed  question  only 
begins  to  appear  when  the  rival  ideals  admit  each 
other's  right  to  exist.  Always  the  practical 

1  I  admit,  of  course,  that  the  ideal  of  conciliation,  like  all  ideals, 
requires  to  be  judiciously  combined  with  the  opposite  ideal,  in 
practice.  Still,  as  against  the  controversial  tone  which  is  still  most 
commonly  taken,  it  may  have  some  value  ;  as  against,  for  instance, 
the  tone  taken  by  each  party  in  the  dispute  about  Culture,  above 
referred  to. 


2  r  2  DISTINCTION 


problem  is  how  to  enable  each  ideal  to  limit  the 
other. 

With  the  concessional  or  conciliatory  method 
as  a  whole  we  are  not  here  concerned,  but  only 
with  its  bearing  upon  the  rivalry  between  assertion 
and  doubt  In  regard  to  this  the  proposal  is  that, 
instead  of  separating,  as  at  present,  into  opposite 
camps  and  waving  our  rival  banners,  instead  of 
doing  our  best  to  magnify  our  difference  from  our 
opponents  and  so  to  win  a  possible  party  advan- 
tage, we  should  seek  first  the  common  element 
from  which  neither  side  will  ever  be  really  free. 
None  of  us  are  merely  sceptical,  none  of  us  quite 
unshaken  by  doubts  ;  assertion  and  doubt  are  only 
abstractions,  and  so  let  them  fight  their  battle 
within  ourselves  with  the  help  of  our  neighbour's 
somewhat  different  experience  of  the  contest. 
Why  should  we  be  in  so  great  a  hurry  to  label 
ourselves,  to  profess  our  faith  or  unfaith?  Who 
can  say  for  certain  what  he  believes,  and  with  how 
much  steadfastness  ?  Who  is  there  whose  belief — 
as  distinct  from  his  creed — remains  quite  the  same 
even  from  one  year  to  another,  on  any  subject 
except  those  where  there  is  least  interest  or  least 
difference  of  real  opinion  ?  Wherever  insight  is 
most  wanted,  there  clouds  and  false  lights  most 
obscure  and  delude  our  vision. 


SCEPTICISM  AND  CONCILIATION        213 

Though  separable  by  abstraction,  yet  in  all 
actual  thought  doubt  belongs  to  assertion  in  a  very 
intimate  manner.  If  there  were  no  room  for  doubt 
there  would  be  none  for  assertion — a  fact  which 
explains  the  effectiveness  of  epigrammatic  paradox.1 
In  an  important  sense,  every  assertion  gets  its 
meaning — its  assertive  force — through  its  doubt- 
fulness. That  is  to  say,  unless  it  answers  a  ques- 
tion— unless  it  chooses  between  'yes'  and '  no'  where 
either  answer  is  regarded  as  possible — the  assertion 
is  truistic,  and  so  not  properly  an  assertion  at  all  ; 
it  tells  us  nothing  that  we  did  not  know  before  the 
.assertion  was  made  ;  the  question  answered  is  only 
a  question  begged.  For  instance,  Is  a  straight 
line  the  shortest  distance  between  its  extremes  ? 
If  this  is  to  be  more  than  a  verbal  definition,  the 
term  straight  line  must  be  so  defined  2  as  to  avoid 
begging  the  question  raised.  Accordingly,  there 
can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  truth  (an  applicable 
truth  as  distinct  from  a  truism)  that  is  recognised 
as  '  necessary,'  in  any  other  sense  than  that  it  is  in 
fact  accepted  as  true.  The  distinction  between 
proved  and  intuitive  truths,  regarded  as  a  distinc- 
tion applicable  to  actual  cases  of  belief,  melts  into 

1  E.g.  the  statement  that  '  Genius  is  an  infinite  capacity  for 
taking  pains. ' 

2  E.g.  by  the  movement  of  a  point. 


214  DISTINCTION 


that  between  cases  where  there  is  respectively  more 
and  less  reflection  upon  the  grounds  of  belief. 
Wherever  a  belief  is  more  than  merely  verbal,  the 
question  what  determines  our  choice  between  the 
'  yes  '  and  the  '  no '  is  a  possible  question,  and 
cannot  be  answered  by  reference  to  our  own  postu- 
lates as  to  the  meaning  of  the  terms  employed. 
However  difficult  it  may  be  in  a  given  case  to  dis- 
cover the  source  of  our  certainty,  the  search  for  it 
can  never  therefore  be  wholly  without  importance. 
And  the  search  for  grounds  of  belief  is  exactly  the 
sceptical  function. 

If  this  be  a  sufficient  excuse  for  our  human 
tendency  to  doubt  from  time  to  time,  the  opposite 
tendency — belief  and  assertion — is  even  more  easy 
to  excuse.  The  reasons  against  hesitation  are,  in 
fact,  much  more  widely  recognised  and  remembered 
than  those  in  favour  of  it,  since  it  is  obvious  that 
all  action  implies  the  absence  of  hesitation,  for  the 
moment,  and  that  he  who  hesitates  is  often  lost. 
And  besides,  faith — even  faith  against  reason — 
has  been  preached  and  practised  so  long  and  so 
well  that  all  language  is  full  of  words  that  get  their 
meaning  from  this  ideal. 

We  are  none  of  us  merely  sceptics.  It  is  even 
said,  and  perhaps  with  truth,  that  unbelievers  in 
theology  are  apt  to  be  overcredulous  in  other 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION        215 

ways,  as  if  the  inclination  to  believe  without 
grounds  required  an  easy  and  familiar  outlet,  in 
order  to  render  it  harmless.  At  any  rate,  the  fact 
remains  that  in  every  human  being  the  critical 
faculty  does  lie  dormant  during  part  of  the  time 
he  spends  in  living.  And  the  question  suggests 
itself,  Cannot  we  use  this  fact  in  finding  a  solu- 
tion for  the  general  problem  as  to  the  limits  of 
scepticism. 

With  the  help  of  the  notion  of  '  reference- 
names  '  I  think  we  can.  Wherever  we  take  a 
word  or  distinction  at  secondhand,  without 
enquiry  and  without  ourselves  laying  stress  on  it, 
there  we  are  using  a  '  reference-name.'  Suppose, 
for  example,  the  question  is  raised  whether  we 
know  reality  or  only  appearance.  Opponents  of 
scepticism  who  (for  the  moment  at  least)  belong 
to  the  old  school  of  controversialists,  picture  the 
sceptic  as  himself  laying  stress  on  the  distinction 
between  reality  and  appearance,  in  the  act  of 
asking  the  question.1  But  we  who  are  in  no  way 
concerned  to  regard  the  sceptic  as  foolish  are  not 
compelled  to  make  so  bold  an  assumption  about 
the  state  of  his  mind.  Perhaps  he  is  only  taking 
the  language  of  his  question  at  secondhand,  and 

1  See,  for  instance,  Professor  Caird,  in  his  book  on  The  Philo- 
sophy of  Kant)  p.  15  (ist  edition). 


216  DISTINCTION 


using  it  as  he  supposes  his  neighbours  use  it  and 
subject  to  their  approval.  At  any  rate,  until  there 
be  some  agreement  between  the  parties  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  distinction,  the  question  cannot 
be  answered  '  yes '  or  '  no,'  for  it  cannot  be  asked  with 
a  meaning.  And  instead  of  the  deadlock  counting 
against  the  sceptic,  it  counts  to  this  extent  in  his 
favour — that  the  doubt  whether  there  is  any  (actual ) 
reality  as  distinct  from  appearance  is  the  very 
doubt  he  was  trying  to  suggest.  '  The  sceptic,' 
says  Professor  Caird, '  has  first  to  justify  the  division 
of  the  terms  ere  he  can  make  it  the  ground  of  his 
scepticism.'  If  the  sceptic  in  question  be  also 
a  controversialist,  he  is  likely  to  answer,  '  How 
very  convenient  for  the  other  side  !  Those  who 
are  not  sceptics  may  insist,  it  seems,  on  the  validity 
of  any  distinction  that  pleases  them,  and  before 
the  sceptic  may  say  a  word  against  their  procedure 
he  must  first  'justify'  what  they  have  done! 
'  Abolish  the  distinction,  by  all  means,  if  you  like  : 
I  was  only  trying  to  insist  upon  its  faults.'  l 
Similarly,  we  cannot  decide  the  question  whether 
there  is  anything  supernatural  by  saying  that 
unless  an  affirmative  answer  is  given  to  it  the 
predicate  '  supernatural '  would  have  no  meaning. 

1  See  also  an  example  given  at  p.  161. 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION         217 

This  would  be  to  go  back  to  Cartesian  ways  of 
thought.1 

It  is  never  necessary  to  suppose  that  a  distinc- 
tion used  by  our  opponent  is  used  argumentatively, 
and  least  of  all  where  his  object  is  to  break  the 
distinction  down.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  more 
likely  to  do  full  justice  to  his  thought  when  we 
neglect  to  take  the  obvious  controversial  advantage 
which  his  words — used  really  as  a  concession  on 
his  part,  not  an  assumption — may  appear  to  give 
us.  Here,  for  instance,  lies  the  weakness  of  the 
argument 2  that  A  can  never  be  developed  out  of 
non-A.  He  who  suggests  the  possible  develop- 
ment of  one  from  the  other  is  really  questioning 
the  distinction,  not  laying  stress  on  it ;  and,  there- 
fore, to  make  it  binding  upon  him  is  to  beg  the 
question  he  raises.  To  make  names  overrule 
facts  in  this  way — to  prevent  our  asking  whether 
so  and  so  has  had  such  and  such  an  origin,  on  the 
ground  that  our  existing  language  assumes  a  firm 
line  of  division,  is  to  suppose  that  in  using  lan- 
guage we  are  compelled  to  adopt  the  assumptions 
made  by  those  who  used  it  first.  Against  this 
natural  superstition  the  notion  that  words  may  be 

1  See  Appendix,  p.  264. 

*  This  argument  is  a  familiar  one  in  philosophy.     An  instance 
of  it  was  given  at  p.  20. 


2i8  DISTINCTION 


used  '  for  reference '  is  of  some  value.  To  ask 
whether  non-A  contains  the  germ  of  A  includes 
the  question  whether  our  received  distinction 
between  A  and  non-A  is  not,  after  all,  faulty. 
The  questioner  uses  these  names  merely  because 
he  supposes  that  his  audience  will  use  them  too. 
If  not,  so  much  the  better  for  his  argument.  To 
preserve  the  distinction  is  no  concern  of  his  ; 
rather,  his  very  object  is  to  break  it  down. 

When  the  plan  of  conceding,  instead  of  assum- 
ing, is  carried  as  far  as  it  can  be,  the  assertor  and 
the  critic  reach  a  state  of  agreement  which  claims 
to  be  no  more  than  provisional,  but  which  may  in 
given  cases  never  be  disturbed.  The  '  truth '  they 
agree  upon  is  recognised  by  both  as  questionable, 
whenever  they  care  to  question  it,  but  in  the 
meantime  as  useful  for  the  only  purpose  for 
which  truth  is  ever  useful — that  of  forming 
a  step  to  other  (questionable)  truths  as  yet  unseen. 
What  more  can  we  ever  do  with  a  truth  than 
use  it  '  for  the  sake  of  argument '  ?  And  this  we 
can  do  as  well  with  a  false  '  truth '  as  with  a  true 
one,  the  difference  being  that  false  belief  leads 
sooner  or  later  to  absurdity,  and  so  to  the  correc- 
tion of  the  parent  error,  while  true  belief  is  justified 
by  its  fruits. 

The  plan  of  conceding  instead  of  assuming  is 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION        219 

capable  of  application  wherever  a  difference  of 
opinion  exists.  The  essence  of  it  lies  in  dis- 
claiming any  but  our  opponents'  definitions,  and  so 
taking  all  our  words  as  far  as  possible  in  the  sense  in 
which  our  neighbours  understand  them.  We  have 
seen  how  it  is  that  the  sceptical  demand  for  a  defini- 
tion becomes  on  occasion  irrelevant ;  it  is  out  of  place 
wherever  the  assertor  is  professedly  taking  his 
language  at  secondhand  and  using  it  only  as  he 
finds  it  used  in  some  argument  to  which  his  own 
remarks  in  the  end  refer.  And  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  even  apparently  independent  assertions  do 
not  stand  wholly  out  of  relation  to  the  reasoned 
views  of  other  people,  may  we  not  apply  this 
method  wherever  an  assertion  comes  before  us  as 
doubtful  ?  There  are  some  who  seem  to  fear  that 
philosophy  is  degraded  if  taken  as  at  all  concerned 
with  the  clash  of  mere  opinions  entertained  by 
different  individual  minds  ;  and  of  course  we  may 
all  admit  that  absolute  truth  is  a  very  desirable 
object.  But  it  surely  needs  some  special  training 
or  bent  of  mind  before  this  or  that  doctrine  can 
be  taken  as  satisfying  the  ideal  ?  It  seems,  rather, 
that  until  some  authority  is  equally  accepted  by 
all  minds,  every  opinion  that  can  bear  to  be  stated 
in  language  does  come  before  us  (when  we  reflect 
upon  it)  as  an  argument  and  not  as  a  revelation  ;  and 


220  DISTINCTION 


that  while  this  is  so — until  the  new  master  appears 
who  will  win  universal  mental  obedience  in  place 
of  the  limited  following  which  every  master  has 
hitherto  had — opinion  of  all  kinds  must  be  taken 
by  human  minds  as  true  or  false  not  in  any  final 
sense,  but  by  comparison  with  whatever  rival 
opinions  are  in  the  field,  For  this  purpose  we 
certainly  need  the  power  of  using  language  purely 
as  we  find  it  used  by  others,  and  of  declining  to 
supply  those  others  with  a  satisfactory  meaning 
for  their  own  expressions.  If  so,  we  must  allow 
the  '  sceptic '  the  right  to  make  an  assertion  ad 
hominem,  an  assertion  only  intended  to  convey  a 
meaning  to  those  who  already  make  the  assump- 
tion upon  which  its  meaning  rests.  Much  un- 
convincing philosophical  controversy  might  be 
prevented  if  those  who  possess  what  they  consider 
a  good  system  of  metaphysics  could  bring  them- 
selves to  admit  that  not  the  only  alternative  is  to 
believe  in  a  bad  one.  That  all  who  do  not  use 
the  one  best  system  use  some  worse  one,  may  be 
admitted  freely.  But  we  can  use  an  instrument 
without  believing  in  its  absolute  perfection — and 
even  in  order  to  show,  or  to  discover,  the  limits  of 
its  imperfect  usefulness. 

That  all  human  thought  is  dominated,  and  its 
capabilities  limited,  by  the  general  notions  we  at 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION        221 

any  time  happen  to  possess,  is  a  truth  with  far- 
reaching  consequences.  On  the  face  of  it  the 
objection  may  be  very  plausibly  raised  that  the 
full  meaning  of  any  such  truth  could  only  be 
apprehended  by  a  superhuman  intellect ;  that  to 
understand  how  far  all  human  thought  is  essentially 
limited,  or  liable  to  error,  demands  from  us  the 
power  of  rising  above  humanity  and  thence  taking 
our  observations — a  feat  which,  as  the  history  of 
metaphysics  abundantly  shows,  may  possibly  be 
performed  so  as  to  satisfy  ourselves,  but  hardly  so 
as  to  stand  against  the  criticism  of  even  our  next 
successors.  Meanwhile,  however,  a  part  of  this 
comprehensive  truth  (if  it  be  a  truth)  lies  open  for 
all  to  observe  and  to  find  instructive.  With 
merely  human  vision  we  can  see  some  of  the  differ- 
ence that  exists  between  the  notional  range  of 
different  people  or  different  ages  ;  can  trace  some 
of  the  causes  and  effects  of  such  difference ;  and 
thence  can  draw  certain  lessons  respecting  the 
probable  relation  of  our  own  beliefs  to  those  of 
minds  with  a  wider  and  narrower  range  respectively. 
And  the  result  of  the  process  should  be  to  avoid 
the  supposition  that  any  existing  philosophy  is 
final,  and  to  obtain  suggestions  as  to  the  direction 
in  which  to  look  for  means  of  enlarging  our  present 
mental  horizon.  Philosophy  is  doubt,  just  as 


222  DISTINCTION 


science  is  knowledge  ;  but  as  the  problem  for  the 
latter  is  how  to  be  knowing  without  becoming 
dogmatic,  so  the  problem  for  the  former  is  how  to 
be  critical  without  becoming  hopeless. 

Our  knowledge,  whatever  be  its  value,  has  one 
unchanging  element  in  it  and  one  that  changes 
slowly.  Our  abstract  or  ideal  distinctions  are  the 
same  now  as  they  ever  were  ;  it  is  our  application 
of  them  to  actual  cases  that  suffers  a  gradual 
change.  So  far  as  the  former  element  alone  is 
concerned,  the  question  of  validity  seems  to  be 
irrelevant.  The  purely  ideal  distinction  between 
truth  and  error,  for  instance,  can  never  be  assailed, 
since  its  validity  is  assumed  in  supposing  any 
question  intelligible ;  if  there  were  no  such  dis- 
tinction there  would  be  no  meaning  in  answering 
any  question,  nor,  therefore,  in  asking  it.  But  as 
regards  the  actual  discrimination  of  truth  from 
falsity,  it  is  surely  the  case  that  our  knowledge  is 
progressive,  and  that  to  deny  this  would  be 
to  claim  infallible  wisdom  ? 

When,  therefore,  we  are  asked  whether  we  are 
sceptics,  it  is  difficult  to  answer  the  question  so  as 
not  to  mislead  the  questioner.  As  a  rule,  however, 
nothing  makes  the  questioner  more  impatient  than 


SCEPTICISM  AND   CONCILIATION        223 

to  tell  him  this  ;  and,  besides,  the  same  truth  can 
be  conveyed  to  him  in  a  less  offensive  manner  by 
raising  difficult  questions  as  to  the  meaning  and 
force  of  doubt  itself.  If  Nature  is  continuous, 
perplexities  as  to  the  exact  meaning  of  an  asser- 
tion can  (as  we  have  seen)  always  be  found  by 
looking  closely  and  by  refusing  to  grant  assump- 
tions without  proof.  Meaning,  therefore,  depends 
upon  a  sort  of  agreement  not  to  raise  these  critical 
questions  ;  depends  upon  a  provisional  compromise 
made — though  tacitly — by  assertor  and  critic 
together,  for  the  sake  of  practical  purposes.  If 
all  distinctions  have  their  purpose  and  are  valid 
only  for  that  purpose,  what  (it  may  be  asked)  is 
the  force,  or  even  the  meaning,  of  criticising  any 
distinction — and  therefore  of  casuistry,  and  there- 
fore of  doubt  itself  ?  It  cannot  consist  merely  in 
the  suggestion  that  the  distinction  is  artificial— 
for  that  fact  is  admitted  already.  It  can  only,  in 
the  end,  be  resolved  into  an  appeal  by  the  critic 
to  the  assertor,  to  revise  and  perhaps  to  cancel  for 
a  time  the  agreement  under  which  the  distinction 
is  taken  as  valid  ;  and  such  an  appeal  is  never 
likely  to  be  successful  unless  it  is  based  on  reasons. 
Doubt,  therefore,  which  springs  from  a  spirit  of 
mischief  merely — which  is  aimed  at  random  instead 


DISTINCTION 


of  being  inspired  by  a  glimpse  of  unfamiliar  truth 
— is  not  a  very  terrible  affair;  while  the  doubt 
which  is  serious,  and  is  so  inspired,  is  surely  rather 
a  friend  than  an  enemy  to  those  who  remember 
that  there  is  still  some  truth,  on  any  subject,  for 
fallible  men  to  learn. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

GENERAL    SUMMARY 

THE  main  purpose  of  this  book  has  been  to  discuss 
the  best  way  of  dealing  with  ambiguity.  Effective 
ambiguity,  we  found,  has  its  source  in  rough  dis- 
tinction ;  and  so  our  purpose  resolved  itself  into 
that  of  suggesting  an  improvement  on  the  common- 
sense  method  of  using  rough  distinctions — a 
reasoned  discrimination  in  place  of  a  haphazard  tact. 

In  order  to  make  the  suggestion  intelligible 
several  explanations  were  required.  Chiefly,  it 
was  necessary  to  show  the  nature  of  this  '  common- 
sense  tact/  and  the  manner  of  its  working,  and  to 
prevent  some  possible  misconceptions  as  to  the 
relation  assumed  to  exist  between  common-sense 
and  philosophy 

As  regards  the  latter  subject,  the  view  here 
taken  throughout  has  been,  that  though  the  dis- 
tinction between  philosophy  and  common-sense  is 
only  one  of  degree,  so  that  neither  can  be  strictly 
defined  against  the  other  except  as  ideals,  yet  the 

Q 


226  DISTINCTION 


two  opposed  methods  may  (since  methods  are 
always  attempts  to  follow  ideals)  be  sharply  con- 
trasted— as  the  method  of  careful  attention  to 
details,  or  interest  in  exceptional  cases,  and  the 
method  of  taking  short  cuts,  or  believing  in  general 
rules.  As  much  as  this  was  said  in  Chapter  III., 
leaving  over  till  Chapters  XI.-XVII.  the  more  de- 
tailed account  of  what  this  difference  involves  in 
regard  to  the  special  question  before  us. 

But  in  order  to  deal  with  the  former  subject — 
in  order  to  show  the  operation  of  common-sense 
tact  in  using  rough  distinctions — we  had  to  discuss 
the  nature  of  rough  distinction  in  the  light  of 
examples,  and  were  led  to  enquire  as  to  the  amount 
of  rough  distinction  that  exists  in  language  gener- 
ally. The  discussion  of  these  subjects  was  needed 
also  for  the  sake  of  certain  incidental  aims  of  the 
book,  which  will  be  noticed  presently.  As  bearing 
directly  on  the  question  as  to  the  nature  and 
the  amount  of  rough  distinction,  the  chief  points 
of  interest  are  these  : — 

First,1  a  rough  distinction  is  any  distinction 
where  there  is  a  borderland  of  doubtful  cases 
between  the  things  which  are  distinguishable  as  A 
and  non-A  (or  A  and  B)  respectively.  The  phrase 
'  unreal  distinctness '  is  useful  for  describing  the 

1  Chap,  ii.,  p.  15. 


GENERAL   SUMMARY  227 


fault  which  a  rough  distinction  (or  indefinite  name) 
suffers  from  ;  but  since  the  question  '  What  is 
reality  ? '  is  one  of  the  unsettled  questions  of 
philosophy,  great  care  must  be  exercised  in  using 
this  name  so  as  not  to  involve  ourselves  in  needless 
metaphysical  difficulties.  We  therefore  elected  *  to 
mean  by  unreal  distinctness  only  distinctness 
which  is  admitted  to  be  unreal.  And  everyone 
admits  distinctness  to  be  unreal  just  wherever  he 
recognises  the  continuity  of  Nature.  The  admission, 
however,  of  the  unreality  (or  artificiality)  of  a 
distinction  is  always  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
a  self-contradictory 2  state  of  mind  is  implied  by 
it ;  distinction  as  such — distinction  at  all — is  the 
separation  of  kinds,  and  the  notion  of  separate 
kinds  is  unavoidably  opposed  to  the  notion  of 
differences  which  are  merely  of  degree.  Some 
reasons  for  this  unavoidable  opposition  are  noticed 
in  Chapter  XIII.3 

So  the  question  as  to  the  amount  of  rough 
distinction  that  exists  resolved  itself  into  the 
question  how  far  the  continuity  of  Nature  must  be 
recognised.  And  here  we  found 4  that,  strictly 

1  Chap,  v.,  p.  59. 

2  i.e.  a  changing  state  of  mind,  a  vacillation  between  contra- 
dictories. 

3  Pp.  162-4. 

4  Chap,  vi.,  pp.  71-79. 

Q  2 


228  DISTINCTION 


speaking,  the  conception  of  Nature  as  at  all  dis- 
continuous  is  an  impossible  one  to  justify  ;  that  so 
far  as  it  is  used  at  all  it  is  artificial  and  incomplete. 
And  if  it  be  so,  all  distinctions  are  rough  when 
closely  regarded. 

This  strict  view,  however,  is  apt  to  seem  '  theo- 
retical ' — that  is  to  say,  unpractical.  For  practical 
purposes  we  are  often  content  not  to  look  so 
closely.  There  are  certainly  many  cases  where  in 
practice  we  never  think  of  Nature  as  continuous, 
and  some  cases  where  we  should  find  it  very 
difficult  to  do  so,  and  quite  impossible  to  do  more 
than  barely  imagine  the  continuity — impossible  to 
verify  it.  And  in  order  not  to  rest  a  strong  case 
on  weak  supports,  we  turned  attention  away  from 
the  more  fanciful  cases  and  raised  the  question 
how  far  unreal  distinctness  (or  the  continuity  of 
Nature)  has  any  practical  effect  in  confusing  our 
judgments. 

As  to  this,  two  things  seemed  clear.  First, 
that  although  the  claim  made  by  common-sense 
tact  cannot  be  disproved  (however  much  we  may 
suspect  its  weakness)  where  all  common-sense  is 
agreed,  yet  wherever  common-sense  is  divided 
against  itself  we  get  a  case  where  the  vaunted 
tact  has  actually  failed.  Of  two  opponents,  both 
may  be  mistaken,  but  both  cannot  be  entirely  right 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  229 

—both  cannot  have  put  exactly  the  right  discount 
upon  the  distinction.  It  is,  therefore,  to  controversy 
that  we  must  look  in  order  to  discover  the  range 
of  effective  ambiguity,  and  especially  to  those 
disputed  questions  that  recur  the  oftenest  and  are 
least  easily  settled,  and  so  are  the  most  contro- 
versial. 

Secondly,  when  we  ask  what  disputes  are  the 
most  controversial,  so  as  to  find  the  strongest 
examples  of  the  effect  of  unreal  distinctness,  we 
see  l  that  '  immaterial  things ' — abstractions  or 
ideals — are  the  chief  source  of  lasting  and  recurring 
controversy.  The  problem  how  to  apply  abstract 
notions  in  concrete  cases  is  the  essence  of  all  the 
real  difficulty  that  arises  about  distinction  and 
definition,  and  the  difficulty  is  artificially  increased 
by  our  human  tendency  towards  '  idealisation  and 
caricature,'  which  again  depends  upon  the  real 
difficulty  which  it  increases. 

Having  thus  obtained  some  view  of  the  extent, 
theoretical  and  practical,  of  the  influence  of  unreal 
distinctness,  we  next  (in  Chapters  IX.  and  X.) 
discussed  the  actual  harm  that  unreal  distinctness, 
and  the  consequent  ambiguity,  brings  about  This 
divides  into  two  enquiries,  since  the  harm  caused 
by  unreal  distinctness  when  the  unreality  is  recog- 
1  Chaps,  iv.  and  vii.,  pp.  55,  85. 


230  DISTINCTION 


nised  is  different  from  the  harm  caused  by  unseen 
ambiguity. 

But  as  regards  the  latter  it  seemed  unnecessary 
to  do  more  than  refer  very  briefly  to  what  had 
been  said  in  our  remarks  on  rival  ideals  (Chapter 
IV.)  and  on  the  spoiling  of  words  (Chapter  VIII.). 
A  name  which  is  ambiguous — i.e.  clumsy — binds 
together  as  '  essentially  the  same  '  things  which  are 
in  fact  essentially  different.  A  general  assertion 
about  a  class  named  A  may  (if  A  is  a  clumsy 
name)  only  hold  true  of  a  part  of  that  class — the 
A's  which  are  A  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word, 
for  instance  ;  and  then  the  broad  assertion  that  all 
A's  are  so  and  so  will  be  untrue  and  misleading 
Or,  again,  it  may  only  hold  true  of  things  which  are 
A  superficially,  and  so  may  be  misleading  to  those 
who  take  the  word  in  a  deeper  sense.  And,  simi- 
larly, the  predicate  A  will  mislead  us  wherever  the 
real  difference  between  S  l  and  the  other  members 
of  the  class  A  is  more  important  than  the  resem- 
blance ;  S,  that  is,  may  be  A  in  a  shallow  sense 
only,  and  in  a  deeper  sense  may  belong  rather  to 
the  non-A's. 

It  was,  therefore,  chiefly  the  effects  of  recognising 
ambiguity   that   we  were  concerned  to   notice  in 
Chapters  IX.  and  X.     The  recognition  of  unreal 
1  The  'subject' ;  that  which  is  spoken  about. 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  231 

distinctness  anywhere  is  the  breaking  down  of  a 
corresponding  distinction.  But  meaning,  like  value, 
implies  a  comparison — a  background  ;  the  meaning 
of  any  predicate  name — and  equally  of  the  predica- 
tion made  by  means  of  it — depends  on  clearness  of 
distinction  between  that  name  and  its  contradictory. 
So  that  the  meaning  of  any  predication  l  is  lost 
where  the  predicate  name  is  seen  to  be  unreally 
distinct.  The  reason  of  this,  we  found,  lies  in  the 
need  for  clear  difference  between  assent  and  denial. 
If  an  assertion  is  to  have  any  meaning,  the  answer 
'  yes  '  and  the  answer  '  no  '  to  the  question  it  raises 
cannot  mean  the  same — a  reflection  obvious  enough 
to  have  been  made  long  ago,  and  in  fact  to  have 
been  used  as  one  of  the  foundations  of  the  '  Socratic 
method.' 

But  since  (if  Nature  be  continuous)  all  distinc- 
tions are,  strictly  speaking,  rough,  this  seemed  at 
first  to  prove  too  much.  Surely  not  all  predications 
are  meaningless  ?  And  so  the  question  could  not 
be  avoided,  whether  we  should  seek  to  enforce  this 
hard  doctrine  in  all  its  strictness,  or  whether  any 
compromise  could  be  effected  between  it  and  the 
common-sense  view  that  total  absence  of  meaning 

1  And  always  the  loss  of  meaning  in  a  predication  involves  a 
corresponding  loss  of  meaning  in  all  general  assertions  to  which 
that  predication  serves  as  minor  premiss.  See  Appendix,  p.  267. 


232  DISTINCTION 


in  an  assertion  is  exceedingly  rare.  Does  meaning 
stand  and  fall  with  absolutely  sharp  distinction,  or 
does  it  not? 

We  found,  at  any  rate,  that  meaning  does  not 
depend  in  the  least  upon  extent  of  borderland.  A 
predication  does  not  get  more  or  less  of  meaning 
according  to  the  less  or  more  of  borderland  between 
the  predicate  and  its  contradictory.  What  it  gets 
in  that  way  is  merely  the  extent  of  its  liability  to 
become  ambiguous.  And  just  as  the  actual  mis- 
leading influence  of  a  word — its  actual  ambiguity — 
depends  upon  other  conditions  than  its  mere  lia- 
bility to  mislead,  so  does  the  actual  meaning  of  a 
word  depend  upon  other  conditions  than  its  liability 
to  be  meaningless.  It  is  true  that  a  word  which 
is  ever  so  slightly  indefinite  is  liable  to  be  ambigu- 
ous, and  so  liable  (for  the  time)  to  be  entirely 
devoid  of  meaning ;  but  it  is  not  true  that  it  must 
be  ambiguous — it  is  not  true  that  the  vaguest 
word  in  the  language  is  unable  to  be  used  with  a 
meaning  which,  for  the  time,  is  perfectly  unmis- 
taken.  We  saw  that  from  this  it  follows  that 
though  meaning  does  stand  and  fall  with  absolutely 
sharp  distinction,  yet  artificial  sharpness  will  make 
a  meaning  just  as  well  as  real  sharpness,  so  long 
as  the  parties  agree  to  accept  its  reality  as  (for  the 
time)  unquestioned.  Meaning  thus  depends,  in  the 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  233 

end,  upon  agreement.  Every  meaning,  like  every 
misunderstanding,  takes  two  to  make  it.  Faith  is 
required  in  order  to  understand. 

No  general  name  can  ever  be  used  as  a  predi- 
cate without  a  certain  amount  of  charitable  inter- 
pretation. It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  general  name 
that  it  shall  blur  individual  differences  which  are 
nevertheless  real,  shall  bind  together  as  '  practically 
the  same '  things  which  we  admit  to  be  really 
different.  And  this  is  true  whether  by  'prac- 
tically '  be  meant  '  to  all  intents  and  purposes,'  or 
only  to  some  one  intent  and  purpose  that  we  try 
to  keep  in  view.  In  either  case  a  choice  is  made 
among  various  differences  that  compete  for  notice ; 
some  we  select  as  important,  others  as  the  reverse. 
And  since  the  soundness  of  our  choice  is  always 
(in  theory)  questionable,  a  certain  mutual  consent 
is  required  in  order  that  any  predicate  may  perform 
its  function  properly. 

In  Chapters  XI. — XIII.  inclusive  we  discussed 
the  improvement  which  the  philosophical  method 
should  help  us  to  graft  upon  our  hastier  methods 
of  dealing  with  ambiguity.  That  improvement 
consists,  we  saw,  in  regulating  common-sense  tact 
by  making  it  conscious  of  reasons  for  laying  more 
and  less  stress  upon  a  distinction  at  different  times. 
The  central  idea  of  such  regulation  is  the  attempt 


234  DISTINCTION 


to  take  into  account  the  special  occasion  of  the  use 
of  a  word,  instead  of  judging  of  its  '  sufficient 
distinctness '  broadly  by  lumping  together,  as  if 
they  were  one,  the  whole  set  of  various  possible 
occasions.  As  said  before,  it  is  ambiguity  itself, 
and  not  mere  liability  to  it,  that  we  are  here  con- 
cerned with  ;  and  actual  ambiguity  attaches  rather 
to  assertions  than  to  isolated  words.  A  word  does 
not  become  actually  ambiguous  until  it  is  used  in 
some  particular  assertion,  and  so  the  soundest 
method  of  avoiding  ambiguity  must,  like  the 
Socratic  request  for  a  definition,  keep  always  some 
particular  assertion  in  view. 

It  is  in  this  way  that  we  reached  l  the  doctrine 
which  this  book  is  mainly  intended  to  suggest  to 
the  reader's  approval,  that  the  validity  of  all  dis- 
tinctions is  relative  to  the  purpose  for  which  they  are 
used  at  tJie  time — a  truth  that  cuts  two  ways.  It  is 
aimed,  on  the  one  hand,  at  repressing  our  excessive 
belief  in  those  distinctions  which  are  (if  only  for 
the  moment)  invalid,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  at 
enabling  us  to  justify,  for  a  passing  purpose,  dis- 
tinctions which  are  faulty  on  the  whole.  There  is 
no  distinction  which  is  quite  safe  against  being 
broken  down  ;  but  there  are  often  strong  reasons 
for  hiding  this  fact  from  ourselves  and  our  neigh- 
1  Chap,  xii.,  p.  143. 


GENERAL   SUMMARY  235 

hours  in  given  cases,  at  least  for  the  moment. 
Hence  distinctions  are  exceedingly  apt  to  seem 
valid  when  not  so,  and  unnecessary  chains  are 
thus  forged  for  thought  We  have  to  learn  that 
the  validity  of  distinctions  is  a  matter  dependent 
on  changing  purposes  of  our  own  ;  that  we  make, 
voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  the  sharpness  of  all 
distinctions  that  are  sharply  drawn  ;  and  that  we 
cannot  defend  it  against  the  sceptical  attack  except 
upon  grounds  of  convenience.  The  general  con- 
sequences of  this  view  may  best  be  seen  by  review- 
ing the  chief  incidental  aims  of  this  book — re- 
flections on  controversy,  on  the  faults  of  language, 
and  on  the  conflict  between  the  rival  ideals,  faith 
and  doubt. 

As  said  in  Chapter  I.,  some  express  reference 
to  controversy  was  almost  unavoidable.  Indeed, 
the  chief  practical  results  of  recognising  the  rela- 
tivity of  all  distinction  to  purpose  are  shown  in 
controversy,  just  as  controversy  is  the  chief  field  of 
examples  of  ambiguity.  If  we  once  take  to  heart 
the  lessons  derived  from  our  extended  view  of  the 
faultiness  of  distinctions  generally,  and  especially 
of  those  that  most  divide  us  into  hostile  camps, 
we  shall  never  again  get  back,  or  never  quite  in 
its  original  form,  our  natural  childlike  faith  in  the 
foolishness  of  our  opponents  and  the  faultless 


236  DISTINCTION 


wisdom  of  our  own  beliefs.  So  hard  a  lesson 
cannot  indeed  be  learnt  all  at  once  ;  but  our  hope 
is  that  by  degrees,  as  the  artificiality  of  all  distinc- 
tions becomes  a  more  familiar  fact,  we  shall  come 
to  suspect  more  and  more  the  opposition  between 
ideals,  and,  in  place  of  the  older  and  simpler  desire 
for  a  one-sided  victory,  we  shall  substitute  the 
desire  to  harmonise  the  dispute  by  seeking  how  to 
limit  each  ideal  by  its  opposite.  For  that  is 
always  the  true  centre  of  philosophical  interest  in 
regard  to  rival  ideals — not  how  to  make  one  devour 
the  other,  but  how  to  find  room  for  both  ;  not  how 
to  carry  this  or  that  abstract  quality  or  principle 
to  victory  or  defeat,  but  how  to  combine  it  most 
judiciously  with  other  and  conflicting  principles. 
In  proportion  as  the  notion  of  any  virtue  becomes 
definite  and  determined  it  stands  out  by  negation 
of  other  qualities  which  also  deserve  an  honourable 
place  in  our  esteem.  To  ask  which  of  such  oppo- 
sites — e.g.  impassioned  zeal  or  'sweetness  and 
light ' — is  of  higher  value,  is  like  asking  which  blade 
of  a  pair  of  scissors  does  most  of  the  cutting :  a 
given  pair  of  scissors  may  require  one  blade 
sharpened  or  renewed,  so  that  for  the  moment 
that  is  the  one  to  which  attention  should  be 
directed  ;  but  a  one-bladed  pair  of  scissors  would 
be  no  more  absurd  than  a  man  who  was  all  culture 


GENERAL   SUMMARY  237 

or  all  conservatism,  or  a  virtuous  person  in  whom 
any  one  virtue  existed  in  such  excess  as  to  starve 
the  others.  To  be  well-balanced  implies  a  certain 
departure  from  each  of  the  separate  ideals. 

As  already  noticed,  one  great  remedy  for  these 
'  notional '  disputes  is  the  demand  for  definitions. 
The  purpose  of  definition,  as  we  have  remarked  so 
often,  is  to  obtain  a  means  of  applying  the  dis- 
tinction in  actual  cases  ;  and  in  the  search  for 
actual  cases,  i.e.  for  concrete  illustrations  of  abstract 
qualities,  the  parties  to  the  controversy  must  be 
dull  indeed  if  they  do  not  soon  begin  to  recognise 
that  things  in  Nature  are  never  abstract,  and  that 
if  they  were  so  they  would  be  too  bloodless  and 
shadowy  to  excite  our  admiration  and  interest. 
Whenever  we  find  an  ideal  held  up  for  reverence, 
the  true  centre  of  interest  is  as  to  the  conditions 
(the  here  and  now}  of  the  need  of  paying  exclusive 
attention  to  it.  Never  is  the  need  more  than 
partial  or  passing.  The  value  of  the  line  between 
any  ideal,  and  all  others  that  conflict  with  it,  exists 
— like  all  other  distinctions — only  for  a  passing 
and  limited  purpose. 

And  along  with  our  recognition  that  our  oppo- 
nents' view  is  not,  after  all,  so  different  from  our 
own,  there  will  come  a  great  change  in  our  contro- 
versial method.  Instead  of  taking  our  opponents 


238  DISTINCTION 


at  their  worst,  we  shall  find  it  more  instructive  to 
take  them  at  their  best ;  if  we  still  think  it  worth 
while  to  ask  for  definitions,  we  shall  no  longer  care 
to  make  use  of  the  insinuations  of  the  Socratic 
method,  and  if  others  attempt  that  method  with 
us  we  may  simply  disarm  it  by  using  '  reference- 
names' — that  is  to  say,  by  confessing  our  inability 
to  define,  and  asking  if  there  is  any  sense  in  which 
they  will  be  content  (if  only  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment) to  let  us  use  the  word  in  question.  Genuine 
concession,  the  opposite  of  assumption,  is  the  root 
of  this  method.  But  to  accomplish  the  best  of  its 
work  it  must  be  genuine  ;  its  object  must  be  not 
to  defeat  the  '  opponents,'  but  to  use  their  minds 
as  well  as  our  own  for  the  discovery  of  truth.  No 
imitations  of  it,  no  self-seeking  with  sham  conces- 
sion, will  serve  this  better  purpose.  The  progress 
of  the  change  in  us  will  be  marked  by  our  gradual 
loss  of  interest  in  the  personalities  of  dispute,  and 
especially  by  disuse  of  the  practice  of  '  scolding,'  a 
weapon  which  is  already  becoming  obsolete. 

The  chief  assumption  that  underlies  this  mode 
of  controversy  is  that  some  truth  and  some  error 
is  to  be  found  on  both  sides  of  every  ideal  dispute, 
and  hence  that  the  interesting  problem  is  not  to 
find  which  side  is  '  right '  and  which  side  '  wrong,' 
and  not  even  to  find  which  side  possesses  most  of 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  239 

the  truth — but  to  sift  the  truth  from  the  error  in 
both  the  opposite  views.  As  admitted  at  the 
beginning  of  Chapter  IV.,  there  are  limits  to  our 
power  of  doing  this — namely  those  set  by  our 
natural  faculties  and  training,  and  by  the  depend- 
ence, so  far  as  it  goes,  of  our  mental  upon  our 
physical  states  ;  that  is  to  say,  there  will  always 
be  a  range  of  subjects  upon  which  we  shall  have 
to  agree  with  our  neighbours  to  differ  from  them. 
As  between  old  and  young,  for  example,  it  is 
notorious  that  each  party  has  its  special  immunities 
and  limitations,  and  similarly  as  between  the  active 
and  reflective  temperament,  or  the  man  and  the 
woman,  or  the  soldier  and  the  tradesman,  and  so 
on.  But  such  '  agreement  to  differ '  is  proverbially 
harmless  and  satisfactory  compared  with  the  differ- 
ences where  no  such  agreement  is  reached.  A 
dispute  reduced  to  these  dimensions  is  practically 
laid  at  rest. 

And  as  to  the  sifting  process  itself,  some  useful 
machinery  for  this  is  provided  by  the  notions  we 
have  employed  in  discussing  the  subject  of  distinc- 
tion generally.  When  we  recognise  that  criticism 
of  judgment  is  criticism  of  distinction  we  very  soon 
learn  to  look  out  for  the  distinctions  that  underlie 
the  judgments  whose  hidden  truth  and  error  we  are 
trying  to  disentangle ;  and  as  soon  as  the  distinc- 


240  DISTINCTION 


tion  is  found,  the  question  arises  in  what  way  the 
actual  interpretation  which  the  judgment  puts  upon 
it  falls  short  of  the  idea  which  the  distinction  tries 
to  express.  If  Nature  be  continuous,  the  actual 
will  always  fall  short  of  the  ideal  somehow,  and 
the  interesting  question  always  is,  not  how  far 
short  it  falls,  but  on  what  sort  of  occasions  the 
shortcoming  is  important  and  whether  the  present 
occasion  is  one  of  them.  If  these  questions  are 
fairly  and  patiently  dealt  with,  the  disentanglement 
of  the  truth  from  the  error  will  be — not  finally 
accomplished,  so  long  as  we  remain  fallible, 
but  advanced  as  far  as  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  permits. 

A  useful  guiding  idea  in  our  dealings  with 
any  disputed  question  is  the  attempt  to  see  how 
far  it  is  '  only  a  question  of  names.'  And  our 
power  of  seeing  this  is  greatly  increased  by  our 
readiness  to  take  all  names,  not  as  we  should  like 
to  apply  them,  but  as  our  neighbours  in  fact  intend 
them  to  be  applied.  However  a  name  be  defined 
there  is  always  some  assumption  involved  in  it, 
and  this  assumption  may  be  criticised  if  we  choose 
— anybody  can  throw  doubts  upon  an  assumption 
— but  it  may  also  be  left  uncriticised.  If  we  choose 
the  former  plan  we  may  keep  controversy  alive  for 
ever,  without  getting  down  to  the  facts  which  are 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  241 

in  dispute  ;  a  better  way  of  reducing  a  question  to 
fact  is  to  let  false  assumptions  show  their  own 
falsity,  by  adopting  them  and  seeing  where  they 
lead.  As  a  rule,  indeed,  we  shall  find  that  our 
opponents'  views  do  not  lead  into  pure  absurdity. 
As  expressed  and  put  forward  by  the  opponents,  and 
especially  by  opponents  who  are  full  of  the  spirit  of 
partisanship,  they  will  probably  have  much  absurdity 
in  them.  But  the  more  interesting  matter  generally 
is  not  the  problem  how  best  to  bring  our  opponents' 
follies  to  light,  nor  even  how  to  find  what  party- 
name  properly  belongs  to  them,  but  rather  to 
understand  as  well  as  we  can  how  their  views  were 
reached.  It  is  not,  for  instance,  the  bare  fact  that 
a  man  is  a  Conservative,  or  a  Radical,  that  is  of 
chief  importance  (except  at  the  moment  of  giving 
his  vote),  but  the  process  by  which  he  became  and 
remains  one — the  sort  of  Conservative  or  Radical 
he  really  is. 

The  second  of  our  incidental  aims  was  to  obtain 
some  general  views  about  the  nature  of  language  ; 
to  understand  difficulties  of  expression  and  the 
way  they  are  met  and  avoided,  and  to  understand 
the  way  in  which  language  acts  as  a  drag  on  the 
progress  of  knowledge  through  our  natural  slavery 
to  words.  It  is  specially  the  clumsiness  of  words 
which  our  reflections  upon  distinction  have  brought 

R 


242  DISTINCTION 


to  our  notice — the  difficulties  of  expression  that 
arise  from  the  fact  that  things  spoken  of  are  always 
more  full  of  change  and  movement  than  the  words 
we  can  use  in  speaking  of  them,  and  the  consequent 
tendency  of  words  to  hide  from  us  the  real  com- 
plexity of  Nature  and  to  keep  us  from  seeing  it 
clearly  even  when,  through  the  progress  of  know- 
ledge, we  have  begun  dimly  to  suspect  it  in  a  given 
case.  It  is  one  thing  to  recognise  these  difficulties 
and  dangers,  but  quite  another  thing  to  find  a  final 
remedy  for  them.  The  slack  expressions  that 
remain  in  a  language  most  persistently  are  those 
that  are  most  wanted  there  in  spite  of  their  faults. 
The  same  permanent  conflict  that  we  have  seen  to 
exist  between  the  common-sense  and  the  philoso- 
phical methods  in  general,  exists  between  the  rough 
meaning  of  words  which  suits  a  dull  or  hurried  or 
careless  insight  into  facts  and  the  finer  meanings  that 
come  as  our  knowledge  grows  wider  and  richer  in 
details.  Still,  a  great  step  is  made  as  soon  as  we  re- 
cognise clearly  the  nature  of  this  conflict  and  the 
reasons  for  its  permanence.  When  once  we  have 
learnt  to  regard  words  as  instruments  of  expression 
— not  given  from  heaven  ready  made,  but  as  much 
our  own  invention  as  any  tools  are — they  will  be- 
come our  servants,  and  not  be  our  masters  any 
longer.  Thereafter  language  in  general  seems  to  us 


GENERAL   SUMMARY  243 

more  open  to  criticism,  more  improvable,  than  when 
we  supposed  that  ambiguous  sayings  deserve  the 
same  sort  of  respect  as  the  Delphic  oracles  used  to 
receive.  If  an  assertion  is  not  understood,  we  are 
beginning  now  to  see  that  what  it  requires  is 
alteration,  not  '  acceptance '  in  its  unaltered  and 
useless  form  ;  that  what  assertions  say  is  never  so 
important  as  what  they  mean,  and  that  to  interpret 
a  meaning  is  always  to  put  it  into  other  and  less 
ambiguous  words. 

The  habit  of  remembering  that  any  case  of  A 
is  only  '  so-called,'  and  that  its  right  to  the  name 
A  is  always  disputable,  alters  the  aspect  of  the 
world  for  us  greatly,  and  helps  us  to  rest  our  faith 
rather  on  facts  than  on  words.  Nature,  instead  of 
being  a  museum  of  specimens  whose  names  are  to 
be  simply  learnt,  is  seen  as  an  endless  collection  of 
difficult  and  interesting  problems,  the  answers  given 
to  which  at  any  period,  though  better  perhaps  than 
at  any  previous  period,  still  contain  much  error 
which  remains  to  be  corrected  by  degrees.  Every 
name  and  every  distinction  is  seen  to  be  a  nucleus 
of  problems,  and  even  the  older  and  less  artificial 
ones  are  seen  to  be  full  of  problems  always  partly, 
never  completely,  solved.  This  vision  helps  us 
also  to  free  ourselves  from  the  wrong  kind  of  fear 
of  self-contradiction — that  is  to  say,  from  allowing 

R  2 


244  DISTINCTION 


the  barriers  made  by  language  to  check  or  stifle 
enquiry  into  the  way  things  really  happen.  We 
learn  by  degrees  that  language  is  mainly  a  store- 
house of  old  and  imperfect  theory,  a  record  of  early 
attempts  to  deal  with  to-day's  problems  from  a 
lower  general  point  of  view  than  is  open  to  us  to- 
day. Take  the  view  of  the  world  which  language 
presupposes,  and  at  any  date  it  is  somewhat  of  an 
artificial  simplification  of  the  facts  of  the  world  as 
they  may  at  that  date  be  seen  by  a  mind  that  is 
not  under  slavery  to  words.  The  isolation  of  every 
*  thing '  is  fictitious  ;  in  Nature  all  things  depend 
upon  one  another,  and  melt  into  one  another,  so 
that  we  cannot  in  perfect  strictness  say  where  one 
thing  ends  and  another  begins.  If  knowledge  is 
progressive,  this  means  that  at  any  given  date 
there  is  something  faulty  in  existing  knowledge  as 
crystallised  in  language.  Gradually  we  shall  come 
to  regard  unreal  distinctness  as  a  source  of  error 
that  is  always  to  be  taken  into  account  whenever 
we  use  a  name  or  distinction  ;  the  only  question  in 
any  case  being  to  what  extent  the  objection  is  re- 
levant here  and  now. 

That  words  are  essentially  instruments  of  ex- 
pression is  a  formula  that  will  be  found  useful. 
It  is  intended  chiefly  to  contradict  the  view  that 
words  are  essentially  names  of  things — of  some- 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  245 

thing  real — a  view  which  leads  us  to  exaggerate 
the  fixity  of  their  meaning  and  the  extent  of  its 
acceptance  in  one  clear  sense  by  our  neighbours. 
As  we  have  seen,  '  unrealities ' — things  which  we 
all  admit  to  be  unreal — are  named  as  freely  as  we 
name  anything  at  all ;  and,  while  a  named  reality  l 
may  rightly  suggest  the  question,  '  What  is  the  thing 
so  named  ? '  a  named  unreality  often  leads  us  very 
far  astray  if  it  suggests  that  question.  The  actual 
things  that  most  nearly  correspond  to  abstract 
notions  are  always  easy  to  caricature  ;  they  never 
quite  exemplify  the  ideal.  And  therefore,  unless 
the  names  are  taken  lightly,  by  tact  of  one  sort  or 
the  other,  the  thought  they  attempt  to  express  is 
apt  to  be  unfairly  treated.  When  we  demand 
producible  examples  of  '  culture,'  '  truth/  and  so 
on,  we  are  on  very  firm  ground,  controversially 
speaking  ;  some  fault  can  probably  be  found  with 
any  example  produced ;  but  whatever  indirect 
value  the  sceptical  question  may  have,  as  drawing 
attention  closer  to  the  facts,  it  never  has  so  much 
direct  importance  as  the  mere  controversialist 
imagines.  The  last  word  as  to  a  prophet's 
teaching  is  not  said  when  we  have  found  his 
doctrine  somewhat  hazy  in  .its  details. 

And   another   familiar  view  of  the  nature   of 

1  I  here  merely  concede  that  there  is  any  such  thing. 


246  DISTINCTION 


words  is  contradicted  by  regarding  them  as  instru- 
ments of  expression — the  view  that  they  are  essen- 
tially '  signs  of  ideas ';  or,  rather,  that  there  is  always 
some  one  idea  which  corresponds  to  a  word,  our 
business  being  to  find  it.  If  words  are  instru- 
ments of  expression,  our  business  is  rather  to  find 
the  word  for  an  idea  than  the  idea  for  a  word ; 
words  mean  only  what  those  who  use  them  choose 
to  make  them  mean  ;  and  instead  of  trying  to  tie 
a  speaker  down  to  the  usual,  the  oldest,  or  (what 
we  think)  the  best,  sense  of  a  word,  the  interests  of 
truth  are  better  served  by  getting  him  to  tie  us 
down  to  the  meaning  he  intends.  Then  and  only 
then  will  the  assertion  that  we  criticise  be  really  his 
assertion. 

On  its  negative  side  the  truth  that  words  are 
instruments  helps  us  to  become  aware  of  the  extent 
of  unreal  distinctness  which  exists  at  all  times  in 
ordinary  thought.  But  its  effect  is  not  merely 
negative  and  critical.  Its  positive  side  is  seen 
especially  in  one  of  its  consequences — in  the  im- 
portance it  gives  to  the  practical  purpose  of  words 
—to  the  search  for  the  reason  which  the  given 
speaker  may  have,  just  then,  for  choosing  that 
particular  word  in  preference  to  any  other.  Thus 
it  familiarises  us  with  the  notion  that  all  the  faulti- 
ness  of  language  is  merely  an  outcome  of  a  conflict 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  247 

of  needs,  and  that  if  we  can  manage  to  keep 
words  sufficiently  under  control,  sufficiently  free 
and  elastic,  we  may  use  them  to  meet  the  need  of 
the  moment  with  some  success.  We  learn  that 
the  only  valid  excuse  for  unreal  sharpness  of  dis- 
tinction is  in  connection  with  special  and  passing 
purposes  ;  but  also  that  this  is  capable,  on  occasion, 
of  becoming  more  than  a  mere  excuse — that  on 
occasion  the  unreal  sharpness  of  a  distinction 
may  be  advantageous — like  the  work  of  an  artist 
in  painting — the  selection  of  the  most  important 
points  which  shall  make  a  picture  vivid,  or  make 
fiction  truer  than  fact. 

On  the  whole,  the  two  notions  that  I  think  may 
help  us  most  in  reaching  this  view  of  the  nature 
of  language  are  that  of  the  constant  tendency 
of  words  to  get  spoilt  (Chapter  VIII.),  and  that  of 
the  connection  between  abstractness  and  vagueness 
(Chapter  X.).  As  regards  the  former,  it  takes  most 
of  us  half  a  lifetime,  or  longer,  to  learn  to  distrust 
words  enough  on  account  of  their  associations. 
Epithets  in  common  use  are  the  typical  kind  of 
words  that  get  spoilt ;  and  the  natural  easy-going 
opinion  is  that  such  words,  just  because  everybody 
uses  them  and  '  everybody  knows  what  they  mean,' 
are  excellent  verbal  currency.  The  reverse  is 
truer.  Just  because  they  are  applied  by  many 


248  DISTINCTION 


minds  possessing  genius  in  different  degrees,  the 
highest  genius  being  ever  the  rarest,  and  because 
n  the  great  majority  of  cases  their  application  is 
made  in  a  hurry  and  without  much  care,  the  worse 
applications  outweigh  the  better  ones  increasingly. 
The  A's  which  are  A  on  the  surface  are  those 
which  common-sense  inevitably  learns  to  associate 
with  the  name,  not  the  A's  which  are  A  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  term  ;  so  that,  for  instance,  the 
man  who  throws  money  about  is  the  '  generous ' 
man,  and  he  who  can  trample  is  '  strong.'  It  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  commoner  an 
adjective  (or  an  adjectival  substantive  or  verb), 
the  less  can  it  be  trusted  not  to  mislead  our 
thoughts. 

And  as  regards  abstractness,  the  earliest  notion 
we  get  of  this  is,  probably,  that  the  abstract  is 
higher  than  the  concrete,  as  being  more  refined 
or  more  difficult  to  understand.  Whether  there  be 
any  sense  in  which  this,  or  something  like  it,  is 
true  we  need  not  here  enquire,  since  at  any  rate 
the  opposite  view  is  equally  true  and  instructive. 
The  thinner  and  scantier  our  knowledge  of  any 
subject  is,  the  more  abstract  are  the  statements  we 
make  on  that  subject.  All  progress  of  science 
includes  a  progress  from  more  to  less  abstract 
assertion— that  is  to  say,  to  a  fuller  specification  of 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  249 

the  conditions  of  inference  from  facts  as  named. 
As  knowledge  grows  we  find  this  and  that  general 
assertion  a  little  too  broad,  too  vague,  or  loose  ;  it 
is  true  '  in  the  abstract,"  but  for  practical  purposes 
we  need  something  more  than  merely  abstract 
truth.  '  A,'  for  instance,  whatever  it  stand  for,  is 
never  found  quite  pure,  but  always  entangled  with 
other  qualities  (B  or  C)  which  either  hinder  or 
help  the  inference  from  A  in  the  abstract.  And 
in  proportion  as  we  discover  the  help  or  the  hind- 
rance that  B  or  C  render  to  A  in  this  respect,  the 
name  A,  unqualified,  becomes  clumsy  for  practical 
purposes.  But  if  knowledge  is  throughout  pro- 
gressive, then  every  name  that  we  use  for  stating 
conditions  of  inference  will  admit  of  being  refined 
by  qualifications,  and  the  interesting  problem 
always  is  to  find  in  special  cases  what  exactly 
are  the  qualifications  required.  The  more  we 
become  impressed  with  this  need,  the  less  we  shall 
trust  words  uncriticised,  and  the  more  we  shall 
seek  to  correct  their  shortcomings  by  getting 
closer  to  the  facts.  Description  is  always  partial 
description,  and  the  individual  case  is  always 
richer  in  detail  than  is  shown  by  any  name  or 
string  of  names  we  can  give  to  it. 

Lastly,  in  regard  to  scepticism,  it  is  not  easy  to 
condense  to  any  purpose  what  was  said  in  Chapter 


250  DISTINCTION 


XVII.  Rather,  the  subject  needs  much  expansion 
before  the  two  spirits  that  war  within  us  will  come 
to  anything  like  a  final  understanding.  It  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  any  preachings  can  help 
us  greatly  towards  attaining  in  our  character  the 
best  proportion  of  positive  and  negative  elements, 
or  the  best  combination  of  common-sense  and 
philosophy.  The  lifetime  of  everyone  is  a  succes- 
sion of  private  and  mostly  unconscious  attempts 
to  suit  that  part  of  his  character  which  lies  within 
his  power  to  alter,  to  that  part  which  is  beyond  it. 
General  statements  on  the  subject,  such  as  pleadings 
for  or  against  scepticism,  are  likely  to  seem  stale 
and  trivial  to  anyone  whose  mental  growth  has 
been  troubled  by  thought.  Those  who  understand 
the  past  at  all  can  hardly  help  condemning  much 
of  the  modern  enthusiasm  for  destruction  ;  those 
whose  sympathies  are  modern  can  hardly  find  refuge 
in  the  old  methods  of  ruling  out  unbelief. 
Both  parties  admit  that  doubt  is  in  the  air  to-day 
more  than  at  any  past  time  ;  and  though  practical 
life,  with  its  need  for  happy  assurance,  remains  for 
us  all  the  most  pressing  and  permanent  of  realities, 
our  wish  to  preserve  that  happy  assurance  is  dis- 
tracted by  an  equally  tempting  wish  to  preserve 
our  honesty  of  mind.  The  followers  of  these  two 
distinct  ideals  may  easily  scold  each  other  for  ever, 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  251 

but  for  those  who  try  to  harmonise  them  there  is 
perhaps  a  brighter  promise  of  results.  The  plan 
of  enrolling  ourselves  under  rival  banners  has 
surely  been  tried  long  enough.  Can  we  not  now 
leave  our  opponents  to  find  what  name  they  please 
for  us — sceptics  or  otherwise — and  so  get  free  to 
attack  the  impersonal  question  in  a  rather  less 
prejudiced  way  ?  No  one  else  knows  our  inmost 
beliefs  so  well  as  we  know  them  ourselves,  and  yet 
we  ourselves  do  not  know  all  their  firmness,  and 
all  their  vacillation,  perfectly.  And  at  any  rate 
the  question  '  What  is  true  ? '  is  of  wider  and  more 
lasting  interest  than  the  question  what  beliefs  do 
you  or  I  at  present  claim  as  our  own. 


APPENDIX 


Nameable  Things  (see  p.  14). 

THAT  every  name,  as  such,  must  be  the  name  of  some- 
thing seems  at  first  sight  to  be  a  too  obvious  truth.  To 
name  something  or  other — one  thing  or  many — is  natu- 
rally regarded  by  common-sense  as  the  most  essential 
function  of  a  name. 

This  common-sense  view,  as  usual,  rests  upon  a  truth, 
but  obscures  it  through  careless  expression,  and.  in  order 
to  substitute  for  it  the  truer  view  that  names  are  essen- 
tially instruments  of  expression,  it  seems  better  not  to  deny 
that  they  are  also  essentially  names  of  '  things,'  but  to 
render  the  admission  harmless  by  adding  that,  in  any 
sense  in  which  the  distinction  real-unreal  can  be  used, 
the  '  things '  that  are  named  need  not  be  real.  They  need 
only  have  reality  in  the  sense  in  which  '  unrealities '  have 
it — that  is  to  say,  only  when  the  word  reality  is  entirely 
deprived  of  its  meaning  for  want  of  a  background.  This 
harmless  admission  seems  best  made  by  means  of  the 
phrase  '  nameable  things.'  Names,  as  such,  are  the  names 
of  nameable  things,  but  we  may  name  unrealities  when- 
ever we  please  to  do  so.  The  c  thinghood '  of  nameable 


254  DISTINCTION 


things  is  a  convenient  fiction,  and  its  convenience  need 
not  prevent  our  seeing  it  as  a  fiction. 

The  meaning  of  a  name  is  not  something  distinct  from 
its  use,  though  its  common  meaning  or  use  may  of  course 
be  distinguished  from  its  use  or  meaning  on  a  special 
occasion.  Whatever  meaning  names  have  is  only  as 
entering  into  assertions.  And  hence  the  very  type  of  a 
meaningless  name  would  be  a  name  which  could  never 
be  used  as  a  predicate,  could  never  be  applied  to  anything 
at  all.  In  a  given  case,  no  doubt,  we  may  find  it  difficult 
or  impossible  to  decide  on  the  proper  application  of  a 
name,  but  the  name  is  supposed  to  be  predicable  never- 
theless, however  difficult  to  predicate  correctly  in  given 
cases.  If  we  recognised  no  such  possible  thing  as  truth, 
the  purpose  of  the  name  would  vanish,  just  as  much  as  if 
we  recognised  no  distinction  between  truth  and  falsity. 

It  may  be  asked,  '  Do  names  like  centaur,  ghost,  and 
miracle  become  meaningless  as  soon  as  we  arrive  at  the 
belief  that  there  are  no  such  things  ? '  The  question  is 
useful  in  forcing  us  to  beware  of  a  slight  ambiguity  in 
what  was  said  just  above.  For  brevity,  it  is  perhaps 
legitimate  enough  to  say  that  the  meaning  of  a  name  dis- 
appears as  soon  as  we  admit  the  non-existence  of  the 
thing  it  denotes  ;  but  the  statement  certainly  is  not  true 
in  the  sense  which  the  question  assumes.  Obviously,  the 
very  proposition  which  denies  the  existence  of  the  thing 
in  question  uses  the  name  as  if  it  had  a  meaning  ;  if  the 
name  miracle  had  no  meaning,  the  assertion  that  miracles 
do  not  happen  would  lose  its  meaning  also.  More  strictly, 
then,  what  is  necessary  to  the  meaning  of  a  name  is  not 
a  belief  in  the, '  real  existence '  of  the  thing  denoted,  but 
the  bare  concession,  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  using 


APPENDIX  255 

the  name,  that  there  are  (real  or  imaginary)  things  or 
cases  to  which  the  name  may  be  applied  ;  the  name  must 
be  supposed  to  be  predicable  of  something  or  other.  It  is 
not  necessary  that  we  should  allow  in  a  single  actual  case 
that  the  name  is  correctly  predicable,  only  that  we  should 
regard  it  for  the  moment  as  possible  that  such  cases  may 
be  found. 

The  habit  of  regarding  names  as  essentially  names  of 
things  both  encourages  and  draws  support  from  an  over- 
simple  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  language.  The  earliest 
origin  of  names  cannot  rightly  be  conceived  as  vocabulary- 
making — that  is  to  say,  as  simply  prior  to  assertion  and 
independent  of  it.  Strictly  taken,  the  question  as  to  the 
earliest  origin  of  names  lies  beyond  the  reach  of  any  direct 
historical  or  even  philological  evidence.  We  can,  there- 
fore, only  do  our  best  to  imagine,  however  negatively,  the 
most  conceivable  beginnings  of  the  process  ;  and  then  it 
soon  becomes  evident  that  in  some  way  or  other  we  must 
manage  to  avoid  that  easy  view  of  the  relation  of  names 
to  assertions  which  regards  the  latter  as  built  out  of  the 
former  as  a  house  is  built  of  ready-made  bricks,  or  as 
existing  names  may  now  be  put  together  to  form  an  as- 
sertion. It  is  safe  to  guess,  at  least,  that  primitive  man  did 
not  form  his  vocabulary  as  a  finished  product  before  he 
began  to  assert,  did  not  name  things  for  the  mere  sake  of 
naming  them  or  even  of  using  the  names  at  some  in- 
definite future  time,  but  that  the  process  of  asserting  and 
that  of  naming  must  have  gone  hand  in  hand  from  the 
outset,  names  arising  only  in  order  that  this  or  that  asser- 
tion might  be  made,  and  so  being  primarily  instruments 
of  assertion.  We  may  safely  suppose  that  every  system 
of  names  has  been  evolved  in  much  the  same  way  as  any 


256  DISTINCTION 


organic  instrument — e.g.  the  nervous  system — in  and  by 
its  operation,  and  not  by  far-seeing  attention  on  the  part 
of  primitive  man  to  the  possible  needs  of  his  remote  de- 
scendants. 

Thought  and  Language  (see  p.  14). 

Distinction,  it  was  said,  implies  a  recognition  'in 
thought  and  language '  of  a  difference  between  one  name- 
able  thing  and  another  or  others,  and  it  may  be  asked 
whether  language  and  thought  are  supposed  to  be  co-ex- 
tensive. That  entirely  depends  on  how  the  terms  are 
defined,  and  we  may  simplify  the  problems  of  distinction 
greatly  by  waiving  the  question  whether  there  is  anything 
that  can  be  called  '  thought '  in  the  absence  of  language, 
and  by  considering  in  the  first  place  only  the  part  that  is 
played  by  distinction  in  language  and  in  so  much  of 
thought  as  is  expressible  in  language.  To  prevent  need- 
less misunderstandings,  however,  there  is  no  harm  in 
confessing  that  on  this  subject  I  side  distinctly  with 
those  who  see  no  reason  (beyond  regard  for  the  roughest 
practical  purposes)  to  limit  the  term  '  thought '  to  such 
thoughts  as  correspond  to  ready-made  concepts.  We 
may  of  course  so  limit  the  meaning — we  may  define  our 
terms  as  we  please — but  the  desire  to  define  thought  as 
finished  thought,  or  highly-developed  thought,  seems  to 
point  to  a  survival  of  the  unhistorical  spirit,  even  in  those 
who, like  Professor  Max  Miiller  ('Science  of  Thought,'  and 
'  Natural  Religion '),  openly  claim  to  belong  to  the  '  his- 
torical school.'  For  as  soon  as  we  ask  how  new  concepts 
actually  arise,  the  shortcomings  of  this  artificially  narrow 
definition  become  evident.  A  new  concept  exists,  how- 
ever indefinitely,  before  a  new  name  begins  to  help  it  to 


APPENDIX  257 


struggle  into  definiteness  ;  the  first  glimpse  of  the  need 
for  a  new  name  is  clearly  prior  to  even  the  first  partial 
satisfaction  of  that  need.  Only  if  no  new  concepts  are 
ever  gradually  reached  by  man,  can  thought  begin  simul- 
taneously with  language. 

Thinghood  (see  pp.  14,  67). 

It  is  hard  to  imagine  how  the  substantive  would  ever 
have  been  distinguished  from  the  verb  and  the  adjective 
unless  we  had  had  the  conception  of  passing  states  in  that 
which  is  relatively  permanent.  Relative  permanence  is, 
however,  sufficient,  without  raising  any  awkward  questions 
as  to  the  deeper  meaning  of  '  thinghood.'  In  order  to  be 
viewed  as  substantival,  it  is  not  necessary  that  a  '  thing ' 
should  be  everlasting  and  immutable  ;  it  need  only,  as  a 
whole,  be  capable  of  outlasting  some  partial  change.  It 
is  because  the  tide  may  be  high  or  low  that  tide  is  a  sub- 
stantive, and  because  the  height  of  the  tide  (or  of  any- 
thing else)  may  vary,  that  height  is  a  substantive  too. 
The  substantive  is  essentially  the  name  of  that  which  may 
be  regarded  as  having  attributes  (i.e.  as  varying  in  this  or 
that  respect — e.g.  high  and  low  tides,  more  and  less  height), 
and  the  question  whether  itself  is  a  thing  or  an  attribute 
is  irrelevant — the  fact,  either  way,  even  supposing  it  cer- 
tain, is  accidental.  And  so  abstract  names,  in  the  sense 
of  substantival  names  of  attributes,  always  arise  when  we 
regard  any  action  or  quality  of  things  as  itself  having 
attributes,  as  capable  of  any  quantitative  or  qualitative 
variations  whatever. 

The  notion  of  change  carries  along  with  it  the  con- 
trasted notion  of  permanence,  or  stability.  By  a  '  change  ' 
we  always  mean  a  change  of  or  in  something  that  stands 

S 


2-58  DISTINCTION 


relatively  still  while  the  change  goes  on.  No  change  can 
ever  be  recognised  as  such  except  by  the  aid  of  a  back- 
ground that  changes  less,  or  does  not  change  ;  no  change 
can  appear  to  take  place  unless  there  appear  to  be  some- 
//*/«£•  that  changes — something  that,  after  the  change,  exists 
in  an  altered  form.  This  something  may  be  as  imma 
terial  as  you  please,  yet  its  name  is  essentially  substantival. 
To  distinguish  between  '  things '  of  this  sort  and  things 
in  any  more  satisfying  sense  demands  (even  if  it  be  pos- 
sible) a  more  metaphysical  enquiry  than  people  in  general 
are  wont  to  give  to  it.  And  accordingly,  since  every  event 
is  a  change  or  a  set  of  changes,  while  events  are  the  sum 
and  substance  of  our  experience  of  Nature,  our  notion  of 
Nature  as  a  whole  grows  to  be  that  of  a  concourse  of 
things  which  are  liable  to  alteration.  We  conceive  as 
'  things '  the  relatively  permanent  or  stable  element  in 
Nature  ;  and  contrast  them  with  the  '  attributes '  of  things, 
which  are  relatively  unstable.  We  soon  learn  to  admit 
that  the  permanence  of  things  is  only  a  convenient  fiction, 
that  all  the  things  we  know  are  destructible — that  is,  are 
capable  of  suffering  so  much  change  that  their  identity 
disappears.  Things,  as  we  know  them,  become  and  de- 
velop and  melt  into  something  else.  A  cloud  or  a  puff 
of  smoke  is  a  thing,  yet  it  spreads  away  in  a  minute  ;  a 
mountain-range  is  a  thing,  yet  the  weather  will  slowly 
wear  it  down.  And  even  before  a  thing  disappears  or 
becomes  finally  decomposed,  we  are  aware  that  our  habit 
of  calling  it  the  same  is  somewhat  of  an  artifice  ;  the  river 
that  remains  is  not  the  water  that  passes  by  nor  the  bank 
that  crumbles,  and  in  our  friends  and  ourselves  that  in- 
most personality  which  is  the  same  to-day  as  in  childhood 
is  confessedly  immaterial. 


APPENDIX  259 

To  use  any  name  substantially,  then— to  form  a 
substantive — is  to  regard  as  a  'thing'  that  which  the 
name  denotes,  whether  or  no  we  may  at  other  times 
regard  it  as  an  attribute  of  something  else.  There  is 
thus  a  sense  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  '  realising 
our  abstractions,'  or  giving  them  a  fictitious  existence. 
But  we  may  regard  this  or  that  as  a  thing  without 
believing  it  to  be  so  'really ' ;  we  need  hold  no  metaphysical 
theory  as  to  the  nature  of  '  thinghood.'  All  that  is 
necessary  is  that  between  the  parties  using  the  language 
there  should  be  a  tacit  agreement  that  for  the  purpose 
in  hand  it  is  irrelevant  to  notice  the  fleeting  or  negative 
or  dependent  character  of  the  '  thing '  so  named.  Grant 
that  a  headache  is  nothing  except  a  passing  state  of,  a 
sensitive  subject,  still  we  may  easily  agree  to  call  it  real  ; 
grant  that  a  defect,  or  a  minus  quantity,  is  relative  to  an 
imaginary  something  from  which  it  is  to  be  subtracted, 
still  it  is  something  that  may  be  spoken  about  with  plenty 
of  practical  meaning.  Shifting  and  negative  as  they  are, 
to  speak  of  them  at  all  is  to  give  them  an  artificial 
steadiness  or  independence,  as  the  photograph  fixes  the 
lightning  or  the  momentary  look  of  a  face.  Only  by 
some  such  artifice  can  our  thoughts  attempt  to  deal  with 
the  fleeting  facts  of  Nature. 

The  Continuity  of  Nature  (see  p.  72). 

The  deeper  difficulties  of  this  subject  "were  purposely 
avoided  in  Chapter  VI.  They  consist  chiefly  in  making 
clear  to  ourselves  the  notion  of  continuity.  It  may  be 
asked,  for  instance,  Does  not  the  argument  that  we  cannot 
conceive  of  Nature  as  discontinuous  lose  some  oi  its 


260  DISTINCTION 


force  when  we  try  to  conceive  evolution  itself?  Such  a 
conception  is  also  just  as  impossible  as  that  of  creation 
(x  nihilo*  Evolution  is  at  any  rate  change,  however 
gradual ;  and,  subdivide  the  time  as  much  as  we  will, 
we  cannot  conceive  of  any  period  of  continuous  change 
so  short  that  no  change  takes  place  in  it.  But  change, 
as  such,  is  a  sa/tus,  or  a  creation  ex  nihilo,  and  is  none 
the  less  miraculous  (or  inconceivable)  because  it  is  small 
— for  size  is  a  purely  relative  notion,  and  depends  upon 
the  point  of  view.  Is  it  not  just  as  true,  therefore,  to  say 
that  Nature  is  eternally  discontinuous  as  to  maintain  the 
opposite  ?  Instead  of  there  being  no  break  or  seam  in 
Nature,  is  not  its  whole  structure  composed  of  breaks  or 
seams — which  only  do  not  appear  such  because  they  are 
small  and  familiar  ? 

This  objection  may  help  us,  at  any  rate,  to  understand 
the  dependence  of  meaning  upon  agreement.  If  the 
question,  '  Is  Nature  continuous  throughout  ?  '  is  to  have 
any  meaning,  we  must  agree  to  give  it  one  somehow  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  notions  of  continuity  and  discontinuity 
must  be  somehow  contrasted.  It  may  be  true,  as  the 
objection  implies,  that  the  contrast  between  these  notions 
is  open  to  criticism.  Only,  if  we  decide  to  criticise  it, 
instead  of  adopting  it  'for  the  sake  of  argument,'  then 
we  can  no  longer  ask  the  question  intelligibly,  since 
neither  answer — yes  or  no — has  any  preference  over  the 
other. 

So  regarded,  the  solution  of  the  puzzle  consists  in 

translating  the  question,  '  Is  Nature  continuous  or  not  ?  ' 

into  other  and  less  ambiguous  terms.     Its  purpose,  in 

the  text,1  is  to  ask  whether  between  so-called  A  and  so- 

1  P.  72. 


APPENDIX  261 


called  non-A  there  is,  or  is  not,  always  an  intermediate 
region  ;  and  to  this  I  answer  that  we  cannot  possibly 
conceive  the  absence  of  it.  Moreover,  we  have  much 
experience  of  its  unexpected  presence,  since  no  experience 
is  commoner  than  to  discover  that  some  so-called  A  or 
non-A  only  roughly  deserves  to  be  so  called.  Look 
closer,  and  your  so-called  '  men '  may  be  seen  to  be 
descended  from  '  beasts  ' ;  look  closer,  and  your  so-called 
'  straight '  line  may  be  seen  to  be  a  little  crooked. 

Besides,  what  meaning  can  be  put  into  the  objection 
imagined  above,  except  that  it  raises  the  question  whether 
between  A  (or  non-A)  and  the  intermediate  region  there 
is  not  a  perfectly  sharp  distinction  ?  And  such  a  question 
cannot  on  our  own  principles  be  answered  in  the  affirma- 
tive. Ideally,  no  doubt,  the  distinction  is  perfectly  sharp 
—  but  so  is  that  between  A  and  non-A  themselves  \ 
on  what  ground  are  we  to  suppose  that  this  new  ideal 
contrast  is  any  better  actually  ?  The  difficulty  of 
separating  the  intermediate  region  from  either  extreme  is 
precisely  the  same  as  that  of  separating  the  two  extremes 
from  each  other.  A  small  change  may  be  no  less 
miraculous  than  a  large  one,  but  the  same  is  surely  true 
of  a  small  gap.  The  gap  between  A  (or  non-A)  and 
the  intermediate  region,  small  though  it  be,  demands  to 
be  filled  somehow. 

Mill 's  '  Inductive  Canons '  (see  p.  128). 

These  are  sometimes  supposed  to  be  general  rules  of 
fact -evidence,  under  which  the  special  case  may  be 
brought.  So  regarded,  they  pretend  to  say  that  if  under 
certain  conditions  we  notice  certain  points  of  agreement 
and  difference  in  '  two  or  more  instances '  observed,  we 


DISTINCTION 


can   then   reach  a   conclusion  which,  if  not  absolutely 
certain,  is  at  any  rate  practically  certain,  and  worth  calling 
a  '  valid  induction,'  as  contrasted  with  a  '  merely  empiri- 
cal law.'     As  general  rules  of  fact- evidence,  their  weak 
point  lies  in  the  description  of  the  conditions,  which  are 
worded  so  as  to  be  either  inapplicable  to  actual  cases  or 
else  worthless  when  applied.     If  we  interpret  the  Canons 
in  one  way,  we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  precautions  have 
in  fact  been  properly  taken,  in  a  given  case,  until  after 
we   have   otherwise   arrived  at  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
causes   concerned  ;   if  we   interpret  them  in  any  other 
way,  they  may  lead  us  right  in  many  cases  by  accident, 
but  in  many  other  cases  they  will  be  sure  to  lead  us 
wrong.     Look,  for  example,  at  the  Canon  to  which  Mill 
himself  refers,  more  than  once,  as  possessing  'rigorous 
cogency'   above  all   the   others,  and  as  enabling  us  to 
'  arrive   with    certainty    at    causes ' — the  Canon    of  the 
'  Method  of   Difference.'     If  an  instance  in  which  the 
phenomenon    under  investigation  occurs,  and  an  instance 
in  which   it  does   not  occur,  have   every  circumstance  in 
common  save  one,  that  one  occurring  only  in  the  former  ; 
the  circumstance  in  which  alone  the  two  instances  differ 
is  the  effect,  or  the  cause,  or  an  indispensable  part  of  the 
cause  of  the  phenomenon.     Thus,  if  we  make  or  notice 
any  single  alteration,  followed  by  a  further  single  point 
of  difference,  in  an  existing  state  of  things,  the  state  of 
things  before  and  after  such  alteration  provides  our  '  two 
instances '  ;   and   the   further  difference  is  the  effect  of 
our  single  alteration.     For  example,  if  we  are  investigating 
the  cause  of  the  stoppage  of  a  watch,  and  we  find  something 
stuck  in  the  hair-spring,  on  the  removal  of  which  obstacle 
the  watch  at  once  goes  on,  the   stopped  watch  is  the 


APPENDIX  263 


'  instance  in  which  the  phenomenon  under  investigation 
occurs,'  the  going  watch  is  the  '  instance  in  which  it  does 
not  occur,  and  to  the  best  of  our  knowledge  the  former  and 
the  latter  instances  '  have  every  circumstance  in  common  ' 
save  one '  (the  obstacle  in  the  spring),  '  that  one  occurring 
only  in  the  former '  ;  hence,  the  said  obstacle  is  '  the 
cause  or  an  indispensable  part  of  the  cause '  of  the 
stoppage. 

Strictly  taken,  the  condition  under  which  this  Canon 
can  be  applied  to  a  special  case  is  one  that  may  be 
fulfilled  without  our  knowledge,  or  that  we  may  think 
fulfilled  without  its  really  being  so  ;  but  which  we  can 
never  securely  know  to  be  fulfilled  in  a  given  case  until 
we  already  know  the  causes  concerned.  What  leads  us 
to  open  the  case  and  look  at  the  hair-spring?  Our 
knowledge,  however  scanty,  of  the  works.  Suppose  a 
clock  stops  at  the  moment  of  someone's  death ;  a  less 
instructed  person  might  there  get  two  instances  appearing 
to  him  as  convincing  as  those  just  mentioned  above.  To 
a  savage,  a  European  who  orders  an  eclipse  of  the  sun 
at  the  moment  when  the  almanac  tells  him  to  expect  it, 
is  clearly  '  an  indispensable  part  of  the  cause '  of  that 
phenomenon.  And  no  one  knows  better  than  scientific 
men  how  easy  it  is  to  misread  our  most  careful  experi- 
ments. Watch  a  conjurer  at  work,  and  try  to  apply 
Mill's  Canon  ;  you  will  find  that  his  whole  art  consists 
in  leading  you  to  believe  that  you  take  sufficient  pre- 
cautions when  you  '  observe '  that  only  one  circumstance 
has  varied,  while  he  himself  stealthily  varies  another 
behind  your  back.  The  difference  between  Nature  and  a 
conjurer  in  this  respect  is  only  that  Nature  seems  not  to 
care  whether  we  are  deceived  or  not. 


264  DISTINCTION 


Some  Examples  from  Philosophy  (see  pp.  160,  217). 

Those  who  are  just  beginning  to  study  the  history  of 
philosophy  will  find  it  a  useful  plan  to  acquire  the 
habit  of  regarding  all  philosophical  questions  as  con- 
cerned with  the  application  of  ideal  distinctions  to 
actual  cases.  The  following  notes  will  perhaps  serve  to 
give  the  student  a  start  in  this  direction. 

Since  Descartes,  philosophy  has  been  much  con- 
cerned with  the  distinction  between  self  and  the  '  outer ' 
world — has  attempted  to  criticise  the  sharpness  with 
which  that  distinction  was  formerly  conceived.  We  can 
hardly  get  far  along  the  path  of  '  observing  ourselves ' 
without  raising  the  question,  How  is  it  possible  for  the 
thinking  subject  to  be  its  own  object  ?  Ideally,  subject 
and  object  are  in  perfect  antithesis,  but  how  about  the 
actual  contrast  ?  Locke  assumes,  quite  simply,  that 
'  we '  can  '  study  our  own  ideas  ' ;  and,  though  Berkeley 
began  to  find  the  distinction  between  esse  and  percipi 
unsatisfactory,  it  was  necessary  for  later  philosophy  to 
take  some  trouble  in  pointing  out  that  the  ego  is  not 
merely  an  object  (non-A),  but  that  so  far  as  known  (or 
observed)  at  all  it  is  known  by  the  ego  acting  as  subject 
(A).  The  pure  subject  could,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  never  be  known,  since  in  being  known  it  becomes 
object. 

Descartes'  criterion  of  truth — clearness  and  distinct- 
ness—is open  to  the  charge  of  being  an  ideal  one,  not 
actually  applicable.  Any  proposition,  he  says,  is  true  if 
the  necessity  of  connection  between  its  parts  is  as  clearly 
and  distinctly  perceived  as  in  cogito,  ergo  sum.  But  what 
actual  propositions  are  in  this  condition  ?  Ideally,  '  it  is 


APPENDIX  265 

impossible  for  God  to  deceive  us,'  but  actually  we  are 
often  somehow  mistaken.  Ideally,  this  may  be,  as 
he  says,  the  fault  of  our  will,  not  of  our  reason, 
but  actually  we  cannot  be  sure  in  given  cases 
whether  it  is  reason  or  will  that  leads  us.  And  in  general 
this  was  the  constantly-recurring  fault  in  Descartes'  meta- 
physics. He  was  apt  to  be  content  with  truisms — i.e. 
did  not  trouble  sufficiently  about  the  difficulty  of  applying 
truths  in  actual  cases.  Thus,  in  the  cogito,  ergo  sum,  the 
undeniableness  depends  on  the  vagueness  with  which 
'sum'  is  conceived.1  Descartes'  habit  of  arguing  from 
definitions  to  facts  is  another  outcome  of  his  failure  to 
distinguish  the  ideal  from  the  actual ;  '  the  soul  thinks 
always  '  (as  a  fact)  because  the  word  (or  idea)  ego  includes 
the  idea  of  consciousness  ;  or  again,  God  exists  (as  a 
fact)  because  in  the  idea  of  God  existence  is  clearly 
contained.  And  his  four  rules  of  method  are  almost 
worthless  as  practical  guides — worthless,  except  possibly 
to  children  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  are  truisms,2  and  in  order 
to  put  a  practical  meaning  into  them  we  have  to  suppose 
them  said  to  someone  who  needs  to  be  told  (i)  that 
error  is  possible  ;  (2  and  3)  that  analysis,  up  to  a 
certain  point,  is  useful,  and  that  the  simple  is  more 
intelligible  than  the  complex ;  (4)  that  we  may  easily 

1  Malebranche  was  just  as  certain  that  we  exist,  but  found  more 
difficulty  than  Descartes  in  regard  to  the  question  what  our  exist- 
ence is. 

-  (Paraphrased) :—  (i)  To  avoid  undue  haste  in  judging, 

(2   and    3)  To   proceed   as   gradually   as  is 

necessary, 
(4)  To  make  enumerations  so  complete,  and 

reviews  so  general,  as  to  satisfy  myself. 
Does  not  every  mistaken  person  fancy  he  applies  these  rules  ? 


266  DISTINCTION 


overlook  some  relevant  detail.  Such  rules  are  doubtless 
ideals,  but  as  practical  guides  they  tell  us  nothing 
at  all. 

Again,  Locke's  criticism  of  the  use  the  Cartesians 
made  of  the  notion  of  innate  ideas  amounts  to  saying 
that  the  distinction  there  drawn  between  primaiy  know- 
ledge and  knowledge  derived  from  experience  is  inapplic- 
able to  the  actual  knowledge  possessed  by  the  human 
mind.  If  we  look  at  any  actual  knowledge,  he  says,  we 
find  it  is  dependent  upon  '  experience.'  And  the  later 
critics  of  Locke  have  in  effect  brought  a  similar  charge 
against  Locke  himself:  the  inexperienced  mind  in  the 
abstract  may  certainly  be,  as  Locke  says,  a  tabula  rasa, 
but  so  abstract  a  truth  does  not  help  us,  since  no  actual 
mind  is  found  in  this  condition  ;  and,  indeed,  if  it  were 
so,  experience  would  be  impossible  to  it.  Before  any 
experience  (A)  can  complete  itself,  we  must  pass 
through  stages  at  which  it  is  incomplete  (non-A),  and 
nowhere  can  we  either  find  or  imagine  its  absolute 
beginning. 

So,  again,  the  celebrated  answer  of  Leibnitz  J  to  the 
assertion  (adopted  by  Hobbes  and  Locke)  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  intellect  which  was  not  previously  in  the 
senses,  implies  the  same  kind  of  objection  in  another 
form.  A  philosophy  (it  says  in  effect)  which  sets  intellect 
and  sense  in  sharp  oppositicn  to  each  other,  fails  to  raise 
and  answer  the  doubt  whether  after  all  the  distinction 
between  them  is  not  somewhat  unreal.  For  if  all  actual 
sense-perception  (non-A)  has  some  intellectual  element 
(A)  in  it,  the  derivation  of  '  A '  from  '  non-A '  loses  its 

1  '  Nisi  intellectus  ipsc. ' 


APPENDIX  267 


power  as  an  explanation  of  the  general  origin  of 
A,  and  becomes  only  an  explanation  of  the  origin  of 
what  we  call  '  A '  from  that  which  we  wrongly  call 
'  non-A.' 

And  any  assertion  that  A  has  arisen  out  of  '  some- 
thing else'  lies  open  to  the  same  criticism.  The  fact 
that  '  A '  has  become  cognisable  as  A  is  proof  that  the 
germ  of  A  (i.e.  A  in  a  less  cognisable  form)  was  there 
before.  But  between  A  and  the  germ  of  A — between 
A  as  more  and  as  less  cognisable — no  line  is  possible 
but  an  artificial  one.  The  fact  that  any  so-called  non-A 
contains  the  germ  of  A  is  proof  that  the  name  non-A  is 
there  in  strictness  wrongly  applied- 

Middle  Term  and  Major  Premiss  (see  pp.  190,  231). 

These  technicalities,  like  many  others  that  are  used 
in  logic,  are  explained  very  superficially  in  the  books 
whose  purpose  is  to  prepare  students  for  examination. 
For  that  purpose  it  is  generally  thought  best  to  define  all 
such  terms  by  reference  to  the  scholastic  logic  in  its  most 
unyielding  form.  Thus  the  student  is  told  to  find  the 
middle  term  of  a  given  syllogism  by  noticing  which  term 
does  not  appear  in  the  conclusion  :  and  the  '  major 
premiss  '  is  '  the  premiss  which  contains  the  major  term  ' 
— the  major  term  being  '  the  predicate  of  the  conclusion.' 
So  that  if  our  conclusion  happens  to  be  written  (e.g.} 
'Some  X  are  Z'  instead  of  in  the  equivalent  form 
'  Some  Z  are  X,'  the  major  premiss  is  the  premiss  in 
which  the  term  Z  occurs  as  predicate,  whether  it  contains 
the  statement  of  a  general  rule  or  not. 

In  a  large  percentage  of  cases  this  mechanical  way  of 


268  DIS  TINC  TION 


finding  the  middle  term  and  the  major  premiss  may 
suffice.1  Although  it  can  never  throw  light  on  the 
process  of  syllogism,  it  will  often  not  have  any  direct 
misleading  influence.  But  in  proportion  as  we  recognise 
that  assertions  get  their  character,  not  from  the  accidents 
of  their  form  of  expression,  but  from  the  purpose  they 
are  intended  to  serve  in  some  particular  argument,  we 
are  driven  to  find  some  other  way  of  distinguishing  major 
and  minor  premisses.  In  a  treatise  directly  on  logic  it 
would  be  necessary  to  discuss  this  question  at  some 
length,  but  here  perhaps  the  following  hints  will  suffice. 

Think  of  any  assertion,  put  before  us  as  requiring 
proof.  Such  proof  always  consists  in  bringing  forward 
facts  as  signs  of  its  truth.  But  what  makes  such  facts 
sufficient  for  proof?  Always  our  knowledge,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  of  the  regular  ways  of  Nature.  A  fact  proves 
a  conclusion  to  us  just  so  far  as  we  take  it  as  a  trustworthy 
sign  of  something — smoke,  for  instance,  as  a  sign  of  fire. 
And  it  is  precisely  these  sign-beliefs  ('  inferential '  or 
'  conditional '  or  '  general '  judgments)  that  perform, 
when  so  used,  the  function  of  major  premiss  ;  the  state- 
ment of  the  fact  is  the  '  minor  premiss  ' ;  and  the  '  middle 
term '  is  the  term  through  which  the  major  and  the  minor 
premiss  are  connected.  If  we  ever  prove  fire  by  means 
of  smoke,  the  fact  '  there  is  smoke  '  is  the  minor  premiss  ; 
the  rule  of  inference  '  where  there  is  smoke,  there  is  fire ' 
is  the  major  premiss  ;  and  the  middle  term  is  '  smoke.' 
This  view  of  the  nature  of  syllogisms  is  not  really  an 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  three  out  of  the  nineteen  '  valid  moods  of 
the  syllogism '  are  stultified  by  it : — Disattris,  Bokardo,  and 
Dimarls. 


APPENDIX  269 


innovation,  though  it  is  apt  to  be  too  much  hidden  by 
the  verbal  trivialities  of  the  older  logic.  There  will  never 
be  life  in  the  study  of  logic  till  we  learn  that  words  are 
only  counters  ;  and  probably  the  scientific  men  are 
those  who  are  now  most  effectually  teaching  us  this 
lesson. 


INDEX 


(  Words  in  Italics  refer  to  Examples. ) 


ABS 

ABSTRACT    names,   49,    62,   69, 
85-6,  175,  229,  245,  257-9 

—  assertion,    21,    99,    121,    129, 

248,  249 

Actual  and  ideal,   27,  34-5,  47, 
49.   53,   56>  66,  85»   "7>  121, 

129,  I7O,  185  «.,  222,  240,  26l, 
262,   264-7 

Adjective,  substantive,  and  verb, 

5,  67,  173-5,  257 
Admitted  reality,  58-70,  85,  112, 

131,  141,  187,  213,  227,  245 
Agreement  and  meaning,  112,  181, 

216,  223,  232,  240,  259,  260 

—  provisional,  60,  141,  187,  211, 

218 
Alternatives  and  distinction,  144, 

164,  198-200,  217 
AMBIGUITY  : 

(a.)  its  nature  :  — 

effective    and   ineffective,   4, 

134,  232 

the  latter   not  properly  am- 
biguity, 4,  112 
ambiguity   (proper)    attaches 
to  assertions,  not  to  words, 
4,  234 

does  not  depend  on  extent  of 
borderland,  104-11,  232 


AMB 
AMBIGUITY  : 

(a.)  its  nature  (con(.)  : — 

most  effective  where  most 
occasional,  6,  96,  151 

rough  distinction  the  chief 
source,  8,  16,  22-9,  84, 
96,  230 

clear  meaning  involves  clear 
distinction,  15,27,99-112, 
140,  195,  198,  231 

connection  with  abstractness, 
21,  25,  27,  49,  50,  85, 
88  n.,  97,  99,  121,  129, 
237,  247-9 

chiefly  occurs  in  speaking  of 
immaterial  things,  85,  97, 
229 
(b.)  its  extent  : — 

every  general  name  liable  to 
it,.  73.  94,  233,  242 

continuity  of  Nature,  7I-9, 
82,  84,  104,  198,  259-61 

laws  of  thought,  in  applica- 
tion, 56,  71,  109,  117, 
217,  230,  243 

occurs  wherever  common- 
sense  (or  philosophy)  is 
divided  against  itself,  82-7, 
42-57,  89-97,  228 


272 


DISTINCTION 


AMB 

AMBIGUITY  (cant.)— 
(f.)  its  effects  : — 
When  unseen — 

'idealisation  and  caricature,' 
45.  89,  I33.2".  229,236, 

245  . 

narrowness  of  view,  99,  134, 

199 
slavery  to  words,  12,  20,  74, 

87-97,     183,     217,     221, 

241-4,  269 
When  seen — 

destruction       of      meaning, 

99-112,    129,    163,     195, 

222,   231,  260 

(</.)  remedies : — 

(I.)  The    Socratic    method, 

24,  25,  104,  114-30 
its  strength,   115-18,   129, 

166 
its    failure,    131-49,    183, 

216-24 

(2.)  Common-sense  tact,  9, 
17,  30-40,  63,  106  «., 
133-47,  225 

its  value,  38,  82,  94,  135 
its  failure,  37,  83,  89,  93, 

135,  228 

(3.)  The  method  of  'special 
relevance,' 1 1 1, 1 35,  143, 

233 
its  value,  139,  151,  182-4, 

215 

its  cost,  1 66,  184-6 
Animal  and  vegetable,  28,  76 
Appearance  and  reality,  215 
Applicability  of  distinctions,  22, 
30,  ioo«.,  121  «.,  254,  264-7 
Argument — 'for  the  sake  of,'  60, 

141,  145,  187,  211,  218,  260 
Argumentative  use  of  a  distinc- 
tion, 144,  164,  217 
Arnold,  M.,  46 

Assent   and  denial  distinct,   104, 
130,  206,  213,  231 


COM 

Assertion,  doubt,  and  denial,  204, 

213,  250 
Assertions  of  tendency,    120-24, 

129,  249 
Assumption  and  concession,  141, 

181-9,  2H-2I,  235-9 
Assumption  and  theory,  187-9 
Assumptions,    criticism     of,    35, 

188,  191,  213 
Attributes  and  things,  62-7,  85, 

97,  HI,  257-9 


BACKGROUND  of  names,  15,  99- 

112,  231,  253 
Begging  the  question,   182,   185, 

186,  188,  189,  213,  216,  217 
Beliefs,  criticism  of,  10,  113,  150, 

193-200 
Berkeley,  264 
'  Borderland,'  extent  unimportant, 

104-11,  232 


CAIRD,  Professor,  215 
Cairnes,  Professor,  124 
Capital,  121  «.,  1 60 
Caricature,  45,  89,  133,211,  229, 

245 
Casuistry,   12,  22,  25,   106,    114, 

185,  204,  223 
Causation,    36,    127,     128,     196, 

208,  263 

Certainty,  practical,  no 
Chemical  elements,  ike.,  74,  182 
Child  and  man,  21,  83,  103,  169, 

198  n. 

Clever,  90,  92,  95 
Clumsiness  of  general  names,  91, 

94,  95,  165,  230,  241,  249 
Common  sense,    as   at    war    with 
itself,  42-57,  82-7,  89-97, 
228 

-   grades   of,   8,    36,    39,  So  7, 
93»  !33.  225,  248 


INDEX 


273 


COM 

Common  tact,  9,  17,  30-40,  63, 
83,  93.  94,  1 06  «.,  135, 
147,  225,  228 

Comparison  (or  value)  and  mean- 
ing, 15,  101,  231,  253 
Concession  and  assumption,  141, 

181-9,  211-21,  235-9 
Conciliation       and       scepticism, 

202-24 
Conditions  of  inference,  122,  123, 

197,  249,  268 
Connotation,    100   ».,    108,    168, 

181,  183,  184 

Conscious  and  unconscious  experi- 
ence, 20,  153 
Conservative  and  Liberal,  45,  98, 

241 
Conservative  tendency  oflanguage, 

12,  20,  183,  217,  241-4 
Continuity  of  Nature,  71-9,   82, 

84,  104,  198,  259-61 
CONTROVERSY   [see    also    under 
'  Ambiguity  '  (c. )  and  (d. )] : — 
wide  meaning  of  the  word,  166, 

192,  219 
main  sources,  42,  51,   55,  85, 

89,  97,  229,  240 
Tricks  and  methods  : — 

The  controversial  demand  for 
definition,  12,  24,  25,  51, 
55,  113-130,  143,  185, 
193-8,  223,  231,  237,  245 
The  defences  against  this  de- 
mand, 9,  47  w. ,  94,  io6«., 
132,  135,  183 

'  Idealisation  and  caricature,' 
45,  89,  133,  211,  229,  236, 
245 
Accusation  of  truism,  82, 125, 

197,  207,  213,  265 
Begging   the   question,   182, 
185,    186,   188,    189,  213, 
216,  217 

Assumption  that  a  theory  is 
dogmatic,  187 


DEN 
CONTROVERSY  : — 

Tricks  and  methods  (conl. ) : — 

Admissions    made    'for    the 

sake    of    argument,"     60, 

141,     145,     I§7,    211,     2l8, 
260 

Waiving  a  question,  59,  89, 
141,  181,  184,  188 

Accusation  of  quibbling,  106, 
132,  136,  193,  210 

'  Only  a  question  of  names,' 
28,  52,  91,  240 

The     concessional     method, 

2II-2I,  235-9 
In  general : — 

questions    of    fact     and     of 
opinion,  41,  155,  194 

truth  and  error  always  min- 
gled,  24,   34,   35,  81,  85, 

2O6,  219,  221,   222,   239 

doubt  stronger  than  denial, 

187,  192,  204,  207,  245 
Counteracting          circumstances, 

121-4 

Creation  ex  nihilo,  72,  260 
Criticism  of  assumptions,  35,  188, 
191,  213 

—  of  distinctions  and  beliefs,  10, 

113,  150,  193-200 
Culture,  40-50,  55,  67,  85,  245 
Cyclone,  6 1 

DARWINISM,  77,  157,  161,  188 
Degree  and  kind,  1 6,  71-9,  16 1, 
227 

—  of  resemblance,  137 
Demand  for  definition,  12,  24,  25, 

51,    55,     113-130,     143,    185, 
193-8,  223,  231,  237,  245 
Denial  and  assent,  104,  130,  206, 
213,  231 

—  and  doubt,  187,  192,  204,  207, 

250 

Denotation,    loo    n. ,    168,     181, 
183,  185,  254 

T 


274 


DISTINCTION 


DES 

Descartes,  264,  265 
Difference,  essential,  6,  92,   137, 

164,  230 
DISTINCTION  : — 

Explanation  of  the  term,  14, 
and  of '  rough '  distinction,  1 5, 
17,  226;  distinction  and 
definition  the  same  process, 
15  ;  distinctions  of  kind  and 
degree,  16,  71-9,  162,  227; 
how  are  rough  distinctions 
possible?  19  ;  other  ways  of 
characterising  rough  distinc- 
tions, 21  ;  'unreal  distinct- 
ness,' 22,  88 

(For  the  nature,  extent,  and 
effects  of  unreal  distinctness, 
see  under  '  Ambiguity  '  (a. ), 
(b.),  and  (f.) 

The  '  applicability  '  of  distinc- 
tions, 22,  30,  100  «.,  121  «., 
254,  264-7 

Distinction  as  '  ideal '  and 
<  actual,'  27,  34,  35,  47,  49, 
53,  56,  66,  85,  117,  121, 

129,    I7O,     185    «.,    222,  240, 
26l,  262,  264-7 

Assent  and  denial  clearly  dis- 
tinct, 104,  130,  206,  213,  231 
Relation   between   criticism   of 
distinctions  and  of  beliefs,  10, 
113,  150,  193-200 
The   relativity  cf  distinctions, 

143,  164,  223,  234,  246 
Distinction  as   the   creation  of 
alternatives,  for  use  in  argu- 
ment, 144,  164,  198-200,  217 
Distinctness,  unreal,  22,  88 
Dogma  and  theory,  187 
Doubt,  force  of,   192,  204,   207, 
223 


EFFECTIVE  ambiguity,  4, 134,  232 
Elements,  74,  182 


IDE 

Emphasis  on  a  distinction,  145, 
164,  180,  181,  217 

'Empirical'  generalisation,  208, 
262 

Essential  resemblance  and  differ- 
ence, 6,  92,  137,  164,  230 

Evil,  27,  86 

Exception  and  rule,  36,  99,  109, 
122,  127,  133,  135,  147,  226 

Excuses  for  vagueness,  47  n., 
89,  94,  106,  117,  121,  132,  143, 
147,  183,  201,  223,  233,  238, 
242,  247 

Extent  of  borderland  unimportant, 
104-11,  232 


FACT  and  theory  (or  opinion),  41, 

154,  194,  206 
Fatuities  of  the  mind,  86,  153 


GENERAL  and  special  relevance, 

139,  144, 162, 166,  179,  234  ; 

and  see  '  Special  Occasion  ' 
—  names,    14,  24,  55,   94,   168- 

178,    180,    182,     220,    233, 

242-8,  253-6 
Gerard,  Rev.  J.,  158,  187 
Grades  of  common-sense,  8,  36, 

39,  80-7,  93,  133 
Grammatical      distinctions,      67, 

173-5,  179 
Green,  T.  H. ,  20  n. 


HORIZON,  63 


IDEAL  and  actual,  27,  34,  35,  47, 
49,  53,  56>  66,  85,  117,  121, 
129,  170,  185  n.,  222,  240, 
261,  262,  264-7 

'Idealisation  and  caricature,'  45, 
89,  133,  2H,  229,  236,  245 


INDEX 


275 


IDE 
Ideals,     rival,     35,     41-57,    89, 

I33>   193,   211,   212,  236,  237, 

250 
Immaterial  things,  60-9,  85,  97, 

229,  245,  253,  257 
Independence    and    'thinghood,' 

65,  257-9 

Indestructibility  of  matter,  72,  258 
Inductive  canons,  128,  261-3 
Inference,  conditions  of,  122,  123, 

197,  249,  268 

'  Instruments  of  expression,"  12, 
25,    69,    177,    179,    215,    240, 
242,  244-7,  253-6,  269 
Invention  of  names,  170,  255 
Irrelevance  of  demand  for  defini- 
tion, 131-49,  183,  216-24 

JUSTICE,  23  «.,  25,  117 

KIND  and  degree,  16,  71-9,  161, 

227 

Knowledge,  progress  of,  32,  73, 
88   n.,    94,    123,    182,    221, 
241-5,  248,  256 
—  origin  of,  156 

LABOUR  and  hired  labour,  160 
LANGUAGE     AND     ITS     DIFFI- 
CULTIES : — 
(a.)  The    nature    of    language 

generally : — 
Conflicting    needs,     II,    95, 

242,  246 
General  name  (or  notion),  14, 

24,   55,   94,   168-78,   180, 

182,  220,  233,  253-6 
Language  and  thought,    14, 

17,  21,  56,  157,  195,  221, 

241-9,  255,  256 
Words    as    instruments    (or 

counters),  12,  25,  69,  177, 

179,  215,  240,  242,  244-7, 

253-6,  269 


LAN 

LANGUAGE  AND  ITS  DIFFICUL- 
TIES (cont.) : — 
Names  as  abbreviated  hypo- 
thetical sentences,  69 
Assent  and  denial  must   be 
sharply  opposed,  104,  130, 
206,  213,  231 

Meaning  depends  on  agree- 
ment, 112,  181,  216,  223, 
232,  240,  259,  260 
Importance  of  context,  170, 

179,  193,  268 

Rough  distinction  between 
different  (grammatical) 
sorts  of  words,  5,  67, 173-5, 

257 

(b. )  Its  faults  and  difficulties  :— 
Discontinuity  : — 

Self-contradiction,  how  far 
permissible,  19,  73,   140 
n.,  183,  227,  243 
Clumsiness   of  descriptive 
names,  91,  94,  95,   165, 
230,  241,  249 
Temporary    disappearance 
of  a  distinction,  100,  112, 
150,  181,  232,  234 
Over- conservative  tendency  : 
Knowledge  progressive,  32, 

73,  88  ».,  94,  123,  182, 
221,241-5,248,256 

Spoilt  words,  88-97,  247 
Slavery  to  words,   12,  20, 

74,  87-97,     183,    217, 

221,   241-4,  269 

Need  of   '  realising   our   ab- 
stractions ' : 
Distinction  between  things 

and  attributes,  62-7,  85, 

97,  141,  257-9 
Assertions   of   '  tendency,' 

120-4,  129,  249 
The  objection  '  truism,  or 

untrue,'  125,   127,   207, 

265 


276 


DISTINCTION 


LAN 

LANGUAGE  AND  ITS  DIFFICUL- 
TIES (cont. )  :  — 
(c. )  How  the  difficulties  are  met 

in  practice  :  — 

The  epithet  '  so-called,'  20, 

59  n.,  182,  243,  260,  261 

Named  unrealities,  14,  62-7, 

85,  141,  245,  253,  257-9 
'Reference-names,'     58    n., 

179-90,  215,  238 
Symbolic  function  of  words, 

189 
Laws  of  thought,  in  application, 

56,  71,  109,  117,  217,  230 
Leibnitz,  266 
Liberal  and  Conservative,  45,  98, 

241 

Life  and  death,  23  «. ,  165 
Ix>cke,  264-6 

Logic,  21,  56,  147,  155,  190,  191, 
198,  201,  267 


MAJOR  premiss,  190,  267 

Man  and  beast,  29,  77>   I4°  n-> 

146,  161,  261 

-  and  child,  21,  83,  169,   198  «. 
Matter,  64,  72,  258 
Meaning  depends  on  distinction, 

IS.    27,    99-112,    140,    195, 

198,  231 

—  and  value,  15,  101,  231,  253 

—  destruction   of,    99  112,    129, 

163,  195,  222,  231,  254,  260 

—  predicative,  99 

-—  requires  agreement,  112,  181, 
216,  223,  232,  240,  259, 
260 

Malting  snow,  &c. ,  20 
Metaphor,  151 
Metaphysics,   7,   54,   58,  74,  209, 

219-22,  257-9,  265 
Middle  term,  190,  267 
Midway  alternative  neglected, 

198-200 


PAR 

Mill,  J.  S.,  99,  108,  128,  261-3 
Minor  premiss,  231  «.,  268 
Moore,  Rev.  A.,  161 


NAMEABLE  thing,    14  n. ,   60-9, 

102,  245,  253-9 
Named  unrealities,  14,  62-7,  85, 

141  ;  and  see  above 
Names,  abstract,  49,  62,  69,  85, 
86,  175,  245,  257-9 

—  general,   14,  24,   55,  94,  168- 

78,  180,  182,  220,223,242-8, 
253-6 

—  invention  of,  170,  255 

—  need  for  rough,  89,  95,    106, 

242,  247,  259 

—  proper,  168-72,  179-84 

—  symbolic  function  of,  189 

—  used  for  reference,  58  «. ,  1 79- 

90,  215,  238 

Narrowness  of  view,  98,  134,  199 
Nature,   continuity  of,   71-9,  82, 

84,  104,  198,  259-61 
Nature,  natural,  102,  210,  216 
'Necessary'  truth,  213,  219 
Neglect   of   midway   alternative, 

198-200 
Nicknames,  170  «. ,  171 


OCCASION,  special,  5,  13,  35,  61, 
96,  106  n.,  117,  118,  131-42, 
234  ;  and  see  '  Special  Rele- 
vance ' 

Opinion,  questions  of,  41,  155,  194 
Organic  and  inorganic,  23  n. 
Organism  and  environment,  75  n. 
Origin  of  knowledge,  156 
'  Otherness,'  14  ;    and  see  '  Back- 
ground ' 

PARADOX,  36,  80,  133,  213 
Parasites,  75  «. 


INDEX 


277 


PAS 
Passing  purpose,    13,   60,  63,  67, 

139,    141,   144,    177,    187,  234, 

237,  247 

Perception  and  sensation,  153 
Permanence  and  'thinghood,'  65, 

257 

Philosophy,  science,  and  common- 
sense,   10,  30-40,  44,   63,   65, 

74,84,  133,  135,  138,  147,  225, 

233,  250,  258 
'Point,'  in  names,   100  «.,  102; 

and  see  '  Meaning  ' 
Population  and  subsistence,  123 
Possibility  and  probability,  109 
'  Practical  certainty,'  no 
Predicate  terms  used  for  reference, 

187-90 

Predicative  meaning,  99 
Producible  and  real,  66,  72 
Progress  of  knowledge,  32,  73,  88 

;/.,  94,    123,    182,   221,  241-5, 

248,  256 
'  Proper '   and    '  general '  names, 

168-72,  179-84 
Proverbs,  147 
Provisional  agreement,    60,    141, 

187,  211,  218 
Purpose,  passing,  13,  60,  63,  67, 

139,   141,   144,   177,  187,  234, 

237.  247 

<  )UESTION-BEGGING,      182,     185, 

186,    188,    189,    213,    216, 

217 

Ouestion  of  fact  and  of  opinion, 
41,  155,  194 

—  of  names,  28,  52,  91,  240 

—  right   to   waive,  59,  89,    141, 

181,  184,  188 
Quorum,  &c.,  68,  69 
Quotient,  &c. ,  6 1 

RAINBOW,  &c.,  64 

Real  and  producible,  66,  72 


SCI 

Reality,  admitted,  58-70,  85,  112, 

131,  141,  187,  213,  227,  245 
Reality  and  appearance,  215 
Reality  of  attributes,  62-7,    85, 

97,  141,  257-9 
'  Reference-names,    58  «.,    179- 

90,  215,  238 

Relations  and  terms,  194,  195 
Relativity  of  all  distinctions,  143, 

164,  223,  234,  246 
Relevance,   general   and   special, 

139,   144,   162,  166,   179,234; 

and  see  '  Special  Occasion  ' 
Religion   and   science,    182,    185, 

189 

Resemblance,  degree  of,  137 
—  essential,  6,  92,  137,  164,  230 
Rival  ideals,  35,  41-57,  89,  133, 

193,  211,  212,  236,  237,  250 
Romanes,  G.  J.,  161 
Rough  names,  need  for,  89,  95, 

106,  242,  247,  259 
Rule  and  exception,  36,  99,  109, 

122,  127,  133,  135,  147,  226 


SCEPTICISM  AND  ITS  LIMITS  :  — 
'  casts  itself  out,'  203 
The  spirit  that  questions,  203 
Its  essence  is  casuistry,  12,  22. 

25,  114,  185,  204,  223 
Its  aim  is  explanation,  207 
Belief  and  doubt  as  abstractions, 

212,  250 
Truth  as  questionable,  213,  218, 

251  ;    and    see    'Truth   and 

Falsity ' 
Occasional    irrelevance   of  the 

sceptical    demand,     131-49, 

183,  216-24 

Doubt  has  no  force  unless  in- 
spired by  vision  of  truth,  223, 

224 

Science,  philosophy,  and  common- 
sense,  10,  30-40,  44,  63,  65,  74, 


278 


DISTINCTION 


SEL 

84,  133,  135.  J38,  !47»  225, 
233,  250,  258 

Self-contradiction,  how  far  per- 
missible? 19,73,  140  «.,  183, 
227,  243 

Slavery  to  words,  12,  20,  74,  87- 
97,  183,  217,  221,  241-4,  269 

'So-called,'  20,  59  «.,  182,  243, 
260,  261 

Socialism,  159 

Socratic  method,  24,  25, 104, 114- 
49,  166,  183,  238 

'Special  occasion,'  5,  13,  35,  61, 
96,  106  n.,  117,  118,  131-42, 
234 ;  and  see  '  Special  Rele- 
vance ' 

'  Special  relevance,'  139,  144, 
162,  166,  179,  234;  and  see 
'  Special  Occasion ' 

Species  and  variety,  77,  157,  161 

Spirit,  dungeon,  &c. ,  177 

Spoilt  words,  88-97,  247 

Square,  169,  183,  185 

Straight  and  crooked,  29,  75,  106, 
109,  213,  261 

Stress  on  a  distinction,  145,  164, 
180,  181,  217 

Substantive,  verb,  and  adjective, 
5,  67,  173-5,  257 

Suez  and  Panama  canals,  137 

Symbolic  function  of  words,  189 


TACT,     common-sense,     9,     17, 
30-40,  63,  83,  93,  94,  106  «., 
135,  147,  225,  228 
Tastes,  opposition  of,  42,  239 
Tendency,    assertions   of,   120-4, 

129,  249 

Terms  and  relations,  194,  195 
Theory  and  dogma    (or   assump- 
tion), 187-9 

—  and  fact,  41,  154,  194,  206 

—  and  practice,  31,  44,  74,   107, 

in,  228 


VER 
'  Thinghood,'  14,  58-70,  85,  112, 

244,  245,  253,  257-9 
Things  and  attributes,  62-7,  85, 
97,  141,  257-9 

—  immaterial,  60-9,  85,  97,  229, 

245,  253,  257 

—  '  nameable,'  14  «. ,  60-9,  102, 

245,  253-9 
Thought   and   language,   14,    17, 

21,  99,   157,   195,  221,  241-9, 

255,  256 

Trough  of  cyclone,  61 
Truism,  82,   125,   127,   197,  207, 

213,  265 
Truth  and  error  mingled,  24,  34, 

35,  81,  85,  206,  219,  221,  222, 

239 
Truth  and  falsity,  23,  28,  76,  85, 

105,  207,  219,  222,  245,  254 
Truth,  'necessary,'  213,  219 


UNIFORMITY  of  causation,    127, 

128,  208 

Unreal  distinctness,  22,  88 
Unrealities,  named,  14,  62-7,  85, 

141,  245,  253,  257-9 
Unreality,      58-70  ;      and      see 

'  Reality '      and       '  Nameable 

Things ' 
Use  of  distinction  for  argument, 

144,  164,  217 
Utility  (Cairnes),  124 


VAGUENESS,  excuses  for,  47  //., 
89,    94,  106,    117,    121,    132, 

143,   147,    183,    201,    222,    233, 

238,  242,  247 

'Validity'    of  distinctions,    143, 

234 
'Value'  and   meaning,   15,   101, 

231  ;  and  see  '  Background  ' 
Verb,  substantive,  and  adjective. 

5,  67,  173-5,  257 


INDEX 


279 


VOL 

Voluntary  and  invohmtary,  153 


WAIVING  a  question,  59,89,  141, 
118,  184,  188 

Words  as  instruments  of  ex- 
pression, 12,  25,  69,  177,  179, 
215,  240,  242,  244-7,  253-6, 
269 


WOR 
Words  as  '  signs  of  ideas,'  246 

—  clumsiness  of,  91,  94,  95,  165, 

230,  241,  249 

—  slavery   to,    12,    20,    74,    87- 

97,    183,    217,    221,    241-4, 
269 

—  spoilt,  88-97,  247 

—  symbolic  function  of,  189 


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THE  LAST  VOYAGE  TO   INDIA  AND  AUSTRALIA  IN  THE 

'SUNBEAM'.     With  Charts  and  Maps,  and  40  Illustrations  in  Monotone 
(20  full-page),  and  nearly  200  Illustrations  in  the  Text.     8vo.  2is. 

THREE  VOYAGES  IN  THE '  SUNBEAM '.     Popular  Edition.     With 


346  Illustrations,  410.  2s.  6d. 

BRAY  (Charles).— THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NECESSITY ;  or,  Law  in 
Mind  as  in  Matter.     Crown  8vo.  y. 

BRIGHT  (Rev.  J.  Franck).— A  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  4  vols.  Cr.  8vo. 
Period  I. — Mediaeval  Monarchy  :  The  Departure  of  the  Romans  to  Richard  III. 

From  A.  D.  449  to  1485.     4?.  6d. 

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BRYDEW  (H.  A.).— KLOOF  AND  KARROO :  Sport,  Legend,  and  Natural 
History  in  Cape  Colony.     With  17  Illustrations.     8vo.  los.  6d. 

BUCKLE  (Henry  Thomas).— HISTORY  OF  CIVILISATION  IN  ENG- 
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6         A  CATALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITERATURE 

BULL  (Thomas).— HINTS  TO  MOTHERS  ON  THE  MANAGEMENT 
OF  THEIR  HEALTH  during  the  Period  of  Pregnancy.  Fcp.  8vo.  is.  6d. 

THE  MATERNAL  MANAGEMENT  OF  CHILDREN  IN  HEALTH 

AND  DISEASE.  Fcp.  8vo.  is.  6d. 

BUTLER  (Samuel).— EREWHON.     Crown  8vo.  y. 

-  THE  FAIR  HAVEN.     A  Work  in  Defence  of  the  Miraculous  Element 
in  our  Lord's  Ministry.     Crown  8vo.  js,  6d. 

-  LIFE  AND  HABIT.     An  Essay  after  a  Completer  View  of  Evolution. 
Cr.  8vo.  js.  6d. 

-  EVOLUTION,  OLD  AND  NEW.     Crown  8vo.  105.  6d. 
UNCONSCIOUS  MEMORY.     Crown  8vo.  7s.  6d. 

ALPS     AND     SANCTUARIES      OF     PIEDMONT     AND    THE 

CANTON  TICINO.     Illustrated.     Pott  4to.   ior.  6d. 

-  SELECTIONS  FROM  WORKS.     Crown  8vo.  75.  6d. 

LUCK,  OR  CUNNING,  AS  THE  MAIN  MEANS  OF  ORGANIC 

MODIFICATION  ?    Crown  8vo.  7s.  6d. 

EX  VOTO.      An  Account  of  the  Sacro  Monte  or  New  Jerusalem  at 


Varallo-Sesia.     Crown  8vo.   los.  6d. 
HOLBEIN'S  'LA  DANSE 


CARLYLE  (Thomas).— THOMAS  CARLYLE:  a  History  of  his  Life.     By 
J.  A.  FROUDE.     1795-1835,  2  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  yj.     1834-1881,  2  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  js. 

CASE  (Thomas).— PHYSICAL  REALISM  :  being  an  Analytical  Philosophy 
from  the  Physical  Objects  of  Science  to  the  Physical  Data  of  Sense.     8vo.  155. 

CHETWYMTD  (Sir  George).— RACING  REMINISCENCES  AND  EX- 
PERIENCES OF  THE  TURF.     2  vols.  8vo.  21  j. 

CHILD     (Gilbert    W.).— CHURCH     AND     STATE     UNDER    THE 
TUDORS.     8vo.  iy. 

CHISHOLM  (G.  G.).— HANDBOOK  OF  COMMERCIAL  GEOGRAPHY. 

With  29  Maps.     8vo.  idr. 
CHURCH  (Sir  Richard).— Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Greeks  in  the  War 

of  Independence :  a  Memoir.     By  STANLEY  LANE-POOLE.     8vo.    $s. 

CLIVE  (Mrs.  Archer).— POEMS.     Including  the  IX.  Poems.     Fcp.  8vo.  dr. 

CLODD  (Edward).— THE  STORY  OF  CREATION  :  a  Plain  Account  ot 
Evolution.     With  77  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

CLUTTERBUCK  (W.  J.).— THE  SKIPPER  IN  ARCTIC  SEAS.     With 
39  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  IDS.  6d. 

—  ABOUT  CEYLON  AND  BORNEO  :  being  an  Account  of  Two  Visits 
to  Ceylon,  one  to  Borneo,  and  How  we  Fell  Out  on  our  Homeward  Journey. 
With  47  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo. 

COLENSO  (J.  W.).— THE  PENTATEUCH  AND  BOOK  OF  JOSHUA 
CRITICALLY  EXAMINED.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

COMYN  (L.  N.).— ATHERSTONE  PRIORY:  a  Tale.     Crown  8vo.  2s.  6ti. 

CONINGTON  (John).— THE  yENEID  OF  VIRGIL.     Translated  into 

English  Verse.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 
THE  POEMS  OF  VIRGIL.    Translated  into  English  Prose.    Cr.  8vo.  6s. 

COX  (Rev.  Sir  G.  "W.).— A  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  from  the  Earliest 
Period  to  the  Death  of  Alexander  the  Great.    With  n  Maps.    Cr.  8vo.  75.  6d. 


PUBLISHED  B  Y  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  6-  CO.  7 

CRAKE  (Rev.  A.  D.).— HISTORICAL  TALES.   Cr.  8vo.  5  vols.  25.  6d.  each. 


Edwy  the  Fair;  or,  The  First  Chronicle 

of  ^Escendune. 
Alfgar   the   Dane;    or,   The    Second 

Chronicle  of  -(Escendune. 
The  Rival  Heirs :  being  the  Third  and 

Last  Chronicle  of  ^Escendune. 


The  House  of  Walderne.  A  Tale  01 
the  Cloister  and  the  Forest  in  the 
Days  of  the  Barons'  Wars. 

Brain  FItz-Count.  A  Story  of  Wal- 
lingford  Castle  and  Dorchester 
Abbey. 

-  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE, 
A.D.  30-476.     Crown  8vo.  75.  6d. 

CREIQHTON  (Mandell,  D.D.)— HISTORY  OF  THE  PAPACY  DUR- 
ING THE  REFORMATION.  8vo.  Vols.  I.  and  II.,  1378-1464,  32*.  ;  Vols. 
III.  and  IV.,  1464-1518,  245. 

CRUMP  (A.).— A  SHORT  ENQUIRY  INTO  THE  FORMATION  OF 
POLITICAL  OPINION,*  from  the  Reign  of  the  Great  Families  to  the  Advent 
of  Democracy.  8vo.  75.  6d. 

-  AN  INVESTIGATION   INTO   THE  CAUSES   OF  THE  GREAT 
FALL  IN  PRICES  which  took  place  coincidently  with  the  Demonetisation 
of  Silver  by  Germany.     8vo.  65. 

DANTE.— LA  COMMEDIA  DI  DANTE.  A  New  Text,  carefully  Revised 
with  the  aid  of  the  most  recent  Editions  and  Collations.  Small  8vo.  65. 

DE  LA  SATJSSAYE  (Prof.  Chantepie).— A  MANUAL  OF  THE 
SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION.  Translated  by  Mrs.  COLYER  FERGUSSON  (ntt 
MAX  MULLER).  Crown  8vo.  i2s.  6d. 

DELAND  (Mrs.).— JOHN  WARD,  PREACHER.  Cr.  8vo.  25.  bds.,  25.6^.  cl. 

—  SIDNEY  :  a  Novel.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 
THE  OLD  GARDEN,  and  other  Verses.     Fcp.  8vo.  55. 

DE  REDCLIFFE.— THE  LIFE  OF  THE  RIGHT  HON.  STRATFORD 
CANNING  .  VISCOUNT  STRATFORD  DE  REDCLIFFE.  By  STANLEY 
LANE-POOLE.  With  3  Portraits.  Crown  8vo.  75.  6d. 

DE  SALIS  (Mrs.).— Works  by  :— 

Cakes   and   Confections   a   la   Mode,  j  Puddings  and  Pastry  k  la  Mode.    Fcp. 

Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d.  8vo.  is.  6d. 

Dressed  Game  and  Poultry  k  la  Mode.  Savouries  k  la  Mode.   Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d. 


Fcp.  8vo.  15. 
Dressed  Vegetables  a  la  Mode.     Fcp. 

8vo.  15.  6d. 

Drinks  a  la  Mode.     Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d. 
Entries  a  la  Mode.     Fcp.  15.  8vo.  6d. 
Floral  Decorations.     Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d. 
Oysters  a  la  Mode.    Fcp.  8vo.  is.  6d. 


Soups  and  Dressed  Fish  a  la  Mode. 

Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d. 
Sweets  and  Supper  Dishes  a  la  Mode. 

Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d. 
Tempting  Dishes  for  Small  Incomes. 

Fcp.  8vo.  15.  6d. 
Wrinkles  and  Notions  for  every  House- 


hold.   Crown  8vo.  15.  6d. 

DE  TOCQTTEVILLE  (Alexis).— DEMOCRACY  IN  AMERICA  Trans- 
lated by  HEHRY  REEVE,  C.B.  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  165. 

DOUGALL  (L.).— BEGGARS  ALL  ;  a  Novel.    Crown  8vo.  65. 

DO-WELL  (Stephen).— A  HISTORY  OF  TAXATION  AND  TAXES  IN 
ENGLAND.  4  vols.  8vo.  Vols.  I.  and  II.,  The  History  of  Taxation,  215. 
Vols.  III.  and  IV.,  The  History  of  Taxes,  215. 

DOYLE  (A.  Conan).— MICAH  CLARKE :  a  Talc  of  Monmouth's  Rebellion. 

With  Frontispiece  and  Vignette.     Crown  8vo.  35.  6d. 
THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  POLESTAR  ;  and  other  Tales.     Cr.  8vo.  6s. 


A  CA  TALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITERA  TURE 


DRAWE  (Augusta  T.).— THE  HISTORY  OF  ST.  DOMINIC,  FOUNDER 
OF  THE  FRIAR  PREACHERS.     With  32  Illustrations.     8vo.  155. 

DUBLIN  UNIVERSITY  PRESS  SERIES  (The)  :  a  Series  of  Works 
undertaken  by  the  Provost  and  Senior  Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 


Abbott's  (T.  K.)  Codex  Rescriptus 
Dublinensis  of  St. Matthew.  410.  213. 

Evangeliorum  Yersio  Aiue- 

hieronymiana  ex  Codice  Usseriano 
(Dublinensi).  2  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  zis. 

Allman's  (G.  J.)  Greek  Geometry  from 
Thales  to  Euclid.  8vo.  los.  6d. 

Burnside  (W.  S.)  and  Panton's  (A.  W.) 
Theory  of  Equations.  8vo.  T.ZS.  6d. 

Casey's  (John)  Sequel  to  Euclid's  Ele- 
ments. Crown  8vo.  35.  6d. 

Analytical  Geometry  of  the 

Conic  Sections.  Crown  8vo.  73.  6d. 

Davies'  (J.  F.)  Eumenides  of  JEschylus, 
With  Metrical  English  Translation. 
8vo.  73. 

Dublin  Translations  into  Greek  and 
Latin  Yerse.  Edited  by  R.  Y. 
Tyrrell.  8vo.  6s. 

Graves'  (R.  P.)  Life  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton.  3  vols.  155.  each. 

Griffin  (R.  W.)  on  Parabola,  Ellipse, 
and  Hyperbola.  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

Hobart's  (W.  K.)  Medical  Language  of 
St.  Luke.  8vo.  i6s. 

Leslie's  (T.  E.  Cliffe)  Essays  in  Politi- 
cal Economy.  8vo.  105-.  6d. 

Hacalister's  (A.)  Zoology  and  Morpho- 
logy of  Yertebrata.  8vo.  los.  6d. 

HacCullagh's  (James)  Mathematical 
and  other  Tracts.  8vo.  iy. 


Maguire's  (T.)  Parmenides  of  Plato, 
Text  with  Introduction,  Analysis, 
&c.  8vo.  75.  6d. 

Monck'a  (W.  H.  S.)  Introduction  to 
Logic.  Crown  8vo.  y. 

Roberts'  (R.  A.)  Examples  on  the 
Analytic  Geometry  of  Plane  Conies. 
Crown  8vo.  y. 

Southey's  (R.)  Correspondence  with 
Caroline  Bowles.  Edited  by  E. 
Dowden.  8vo.  141. 

Stubbs'  (J.  W.)  History  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Dublin,  from  its  Foundation 
to  the  End  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury. 8vo.  i2s.  6d. 

Thornhill's  (W.  J.)  The  JEneid  of 
Virgil,  freely  translated  into  English 
Blank  Verse.  Crown  8vo.  js.  6d. 

Tyrrell's  (R.  Y.)  Cicero's  Correspond- 
ence. 
Vols.  I.,  II.  and  III.     8vo.  each  izs. 

— — — —  The  Acharnians  of  Aristo- 
phanes, translated  into  English 
Verse.  Crown  8vo.  T.S. 

Webb's  (T.  E.)  Goethe's  Faust,  Trans- 
lation and  Notes.  8vo.  12S.  6d. 

—  The  Yeil  of  Isis ;    a  Series 
of  Essays  on  Idealism.     8vo.  IQS.  6d. 

Wilkins'  (G.)  The  Growth  of  the 
Homeric  Poems.  8vo.  6s. 


EWALD  (Heinrich).—  THE  ANTIQUITIES  OF  ISRAEL.    8vo.  12*.  6d. 

-  1  HE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL.     8vo.     Vols.  I.  and  II.  24^.    Vols.  III. 
and  IV.  2is.     Vol.  V.  185.     Vol.  VI.  i6s.     Vol.  VII.  215.    Vol.  VIII.  i8j. 

FARNELL  (G.  S.).-  GREEK  LYRIC  POETRY.    8vo.  *6s. 

FARRAR  (F.W.).—  LANGUAGE  AND  LANGUAGES.    Crown  8vo.  65. 

DARKNESS  AND  DAWN  ;    or,  Scenes  in  the  Days  of  Nero.     An 


Historic  Tale.     2  vols.  8ve. 
FITZPATRICK  (W.  J.).—  SECRET  SERVICE  UNDER  PITT.    8vo. 

FITZWYGRAM  (Major-General  Sir  F.).—  HORSES  AND  STABLES. 
WTith  19  pages  of  Illustrations.     8vo.  5^. 

FORD  (Horace).—  THE  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE  OF  ARCHERY. 
New  Edition,  thoroughly  Revised  and  Re-  written  by  W.  BUTT.     8vo.  14?. 

FOUARD  (Abbe'  Constant).—  THE  CHRIST  THE  SON  OF  GOD.  With 
Introduction  by  Cardinal  Manning.    2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  14^. 


PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &>  CO.  9 

FOX  (C.  J.).— THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.     By 

the  Right  Hon.  Sir.  G.  O.  TKEVELYAN,  Bart. 
Library  Edition.     8vo.  i8s.  \      Cabinet  Edition.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

FRANCIS  (Francis).— A  BOOK  ON  ANGLING:  including  full  Illustrated 
Lists  of  Salmon  Flies.     Post  8vo.  15^. 

FREEMAN  (E.  A.).— THE  HISTORICAL  GEOGRAPHY  OF  EUROPE. 
With  65  Maps.     2  vols.  8vo.  %is.  6d. 

FROUDE  (James  A.).— THE  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  from  the  Fall  of 
Wolsey  to  the  Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada.     12  vols.  Crown  8vo.  £-2  zs. 

THE  DIVORCE  OF  CATHERINE  OF  ARAGON  :  The  Story  as  told 

by  the  Imperial  Ambassadors  resident  at  the  Court  of  Henry  VIII.     In  Usum 
Laicorum.     8vo.  idr. 

THE  ENGLISH   IN  IRELAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CEN- 


TURY.    3  vols.  Crown  8vo.  i8s. 

SHORT  STUDIES  ON  GREAT  SUBJECTS. 


Cabinet  Edition.    4  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  245.  |      Cheap  Edit.    4  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  35.  6d.  ea. 

CAESAR :  a  Sketch.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

OCEANA  ;  OK,  ENGLAND  AND  HER  COLONIES.     With  9  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo.  zs.  boards,  2s.  6d.  cloth. 

THE  ENGLISH  IN  THE  WEST  INDIES;  or,  the  Bow  of  Ulysses. 

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THE  TWO  CHIEFS  OF  DUNBOY;  an  Irish  Romance  of  the  Last 

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THOMAS  CARLYLE,  a  History  of  his  Life.     1795  to  1835.     2  vols. 


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GATJLWEY(SirRalphPayne-).-LETTERSTOYOUNGSHOOTERS. 
(First  Series.)    On  the  Choice  and  Use  of  a  Gun.     Crown  8vo.  75.  6d. 

GARDINER  (Samuel  Rawson).— HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  1603- 

1642.     10  vols.     Crown  8vo.  price  6s.  each. 
A  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR,  1642-1649.     (3  vols.) 

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THE  STUDENT'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.     Vol.  I.  B.C.  55-A.D. 

1509,  with  173  Illustrations,  Crown  8vo.    45.      Vol.  II.    1509-1689,  with  96 

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•  A  SCHOOL  ATLAS  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY.     A  Companion  Atlas 


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GIBERNE  (Agnes).— NIGEL  BROWNING.     Crown  8vo.  £?. 
GOETHE. — FAUST.     A  New  Translation  chiefly  in  Blank  Verse ;  with  Intro- 
duction and  Notes.     By  JAMES  ADEY  BIRDS.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 
FAUST.    The  Second  Part.    A  New  Translation  in  Verse.     By  JAMES 

ADEY  BIRDS.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 
GREEN  (T.  H.)— THE  WORKS  OF  THOMAS  HILL  GREEN.     (3  Vols. ) 

Vols.  I.  and  II.     8vo.  i6s.  each.      Vol.  III.     8vo.  zis. 
THE  WITNESS  OF  GOD  AND  FAITH  :  Two  Lay  Sermons.     Fcp. 

8vo.  zs. 
GREVILLE  (C.  C.  F.).— A  JOURNAL  OF  THE  REIGNS  OF  KING 

GEORGE  IV. ,  KING  WILLIAM  IV. ,  AND  QUEEN  VICTORIA.     Edited 

by  H.  REEVE.     8  vols.     Crown  8vo.  6s.  each. 


io       A  CATALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITERATURE 

GWILT     (Joseph).— AN     ENCYCLOPEDIA     OF    ARCHITECTURE. 

With  more  than  1700  Engravings  on  Wood.     Svo.  525.  6d. 

HAGGARD  (H.  Rider).— .SHE.    With  32  Illustrations.   Crown  8vo.  3f.  6./. 
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BEATRICE.     Crown  Svo.  y.  6d. 

-  ERIC  BRIGHTEYES.     With  51  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo.  6s. 

HAGGARD  (H.  Rider)  and  LANG  (Andrew).— THE  WORLD'S 

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HALLIWELL-PHTLLIPPS  (J.  O.)— A  CALENDAROFTHEHALLI- 
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OUTLINES  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  SHAKESPEARE.     With  numerous 

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HARRISON"  (Jane  E.).— MYTHS  OF  THE  ODYSSEY  IN  ART  AND 
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HARRISON  (F.  Bayford).-THE  CONTEMPORARY  HISTORY  OF 
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THE  TROPICAL  WORLD.     With  8  Plates  and  172  Woodcuts.     Svo.  ^s.  net. 
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HA VELOCK.— MEMOIRS  OF  SIR  HENRY  HAVELOCK,  K.C.B.  By 
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HEARN  (W.  Edward).— THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  ENGLAND:  its 
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THE  ARYAN   HOUSEHOLD  :   its  Structure  and    ts  Development. 

An  Introduction  to  Comparative  Jurisprudence.     Svo.  165. 

HISTORIC  TOWNS.    Edited  by  E.  A.  FREEMAN  and  Rev.  WILLIAM  HUNT. 

With  Maps  and  Plans.     Crown  Svo  35.  6tf.  each. 
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London.     By  Rev.  W.  J.  Loftie. 
Oxford.     By  Rev.  C.  W.  Boase. 


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Boston    (U.S.).       By    Henry    Cabot 

Lodge. 
York.     By  Rev.  James  Raine. 

[In  preparation. 


PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREF.N,  6>  CO.         n 


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-  THE  THEORY  OF  PRACTICE :  an  Ethical  Enquiry.     2  vols.  8vo.  24*. 

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HO  WITT  (William^— VISITS  TO  REMARKABLE  PLACES.  80  Illus- 
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HUME.— THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  WORKS  OF  DAVID  HUME.  Edited 
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HUTCHINSON  (Horace).— FAMOUS  GOLF  LINKS.  Ry  HORACE 
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H.  S.  King,  &c.  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

HUTH  (Alfred  H.).— THE  MARRIAGE  OF  NEAR  KIN,  considered  witli 
respect  to  the  Law  of  Nations,  the  Result  ol  Experience,  and  the  Teachings 
of  Biology.  Royal  8vo.  ai.r. 

INGELOW  (Jean).— POETICAL  WORKS.  Vols.  I.  and  II.  Fcp.  8v0. 
I2.r.  Vol.  III.  Fcp.  8vo.  $s. 

LYRICAL  AND  OTHER  POEMS.      Selected  from  the  Writings  of 

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ings and  187  Woodcuts.     2  vols.  8vo.  20^.  net. 
_  LEGENDS  OF  THE  MADONNA,  the  Virgin  Mary  as  represented  in 

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JEFFERIES  (Richard).—  FIELD  AND   HEDGEROW.      Last  Essays. 

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JENNINGS  (Rev.  A.  C.).-ECCLESIA  ANGLICAN  A      A  1  listory  of  tne 
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JOHNSON  (J.  &  J.  H.).—  THE  PATENTEE'S  MANUAL;  a  Treatise  on 
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JOED  AN  (William  Leighton).—  THE  STANDARD  OF  VALUE.  Svo.dr. 

JUSTINIAN.—  THE  INSTITUTES  OF  JUSTINIAN  ;  Latin  Text,  with 
English  Introduction,  &c.  By  THOMAS  C.  SANDARS.  8vo.  i&r. 

KALISCH  (M.  M.).—  BIBLE  STUDIES.  Part  I.  The  Prophecies  of 
Balaam.  8vo.  IGJ.  6d.  Part  II.  The  Book  of  Jonah.  8vo.  ios.  6d. 

KALISCH  (M.  M.).—  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  ;  with 
a  New  Translation.  Vol.  I.  Genesis,  8vo.  iSs.,  or  adapted  for  the  General 
Reader,  izs.  Vol.  II.  Exodus,  15^.,  or  adapted  for  the  General  Reader,  las. 
Vol.  III.  Leviticus,  Part  I.  15^.,  or  adapted  for  the  General  Reader,  85. 
Vol.  IV.  Leviticus,  Part  II.  155.,  or  adapted  for  the  General  Reader,  8s. 

KANT  (Irnmanuel).—  CRITIQUE  OF  PRACTICAL  REASON,  AND 
OTHER  WORKS  ON  THE  THEORY  OF  ETHICS.  8vo.  izs.  6d. 

-  INTRODUCTION  TO  LOGIC.    Translated  by  T.  K.  Abbott.    Notes 
by  S.  T.  Coleridge.     8vo.  6s. 

KILLICK  (Rev.  A.  H.).—  HANDBOOK  TO  MILL'S  SYSTEM  OF 
LOGIC.  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

KUTGHT  (E.  F.).—  THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  '  ALERTE'  ;  the  Narrative  of 
a  Search  for  Treasure  on  the  Desert  Island  of  Trinidad.  With  2  Maps  and 
23  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

-  SAVE  ME  FROM  MY  FRIENDS  :  a  Novel.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

LADD  (George  T.).—  ELEMENTS  OF  PHYSIOLOGICAL  PSYCHO- 
LOGY. 8vo.  vis. 

-  OUTLINES  OF  PHYSIOLOGICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.     A  Text-Book 
of  Mental  Science  for  Academies  and  Colleges.     8vo.  izs. 


(Andrew).—  CUSTOM  AND  MYTH  :  Studies  of  Early  Usage  and 
Belief.     With  15  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  -js.  6d. 

BOOKS  AND  BOOKMEN.     With  2  Coloured  Plates  and  17  Illustra- 


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MURDOCH.     Crown  8vo.  js.  6d. 

LAVISSE   (Ernest).— GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  POLITICAL  HIS 
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PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO.         13 

LA  YARD  (Nina  F.).— POEMS.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

LECKY(W.  E.  H.).— HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH 
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IN  BRITISH  COLUMBIA.     With  Map  and  75  Illusts.     Cr.  8vo.  3^.  6d. 

LEWES  (George  Henry).— THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  from 

Thales  to  Comte.     2  vo  s.  8vo.  325. 
LIDDELL   (Colonel  R.  T.).— MEMOIRS  OF  THE  TENTH   ROYAL 

HUSSARS.     With  Numerous  Illustrations.     2  vols.     Imperial  8vo.  6y. 

LLOYD  (F.  J.).— THE  SCIENCE  OF  AGRICULTURE.     8vo.  tar. 
LONGMAN  (Frederick  W.).— CHESS  OPENINGS.     Fcp.  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

-  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT  AND  THE  SEVEN  YEARS'  WAR. 
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LONGMORE  (Sir  T.).— RICHARD  WISEMAN,  Surgeon  and  Sergeant- 
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LOUDON  (J.  C.).— ENCYCLOPEDIA  OF  GARDENING.      With  1000 
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LTJBBOCK  (Sir  J.).— THE  ORIGIN  OF  CIVILISATION  and  the  Primitive 
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LYALL  (Edna).— THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  SLANDER.    Fcp.  8vo. 

is.  sewed. 
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MACATJLAY  (Lord).— COMPLETE  WORKS  OF  LORD  MACAULAY. 
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I          £4  *&• 
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THE  SECOND. 

Popular  Edition,  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  5^. 
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12S. 


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'  Silver  Library '  Edition.     With  Por- 
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\Contimitd. 


14       A  CATALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITERATURE 


MACATJLAY  (Lord).— ESSAYS  (continued). 
CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  ESSAYS. 


Student's  Edition.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 
People's  Edition,  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  8s. 


Trevelyan  Edition,  2  vols.  Crown  Svo.gs. 
Cabinet  Edition,  4  vols.  Post  8vo.  24?. 


Library  Edition,  3  vols.  8vo. 
ESSAYS  which  may  be  had  separately,  price  6d.  eachsewed.  is.  eachcloth. 


Addison  and  Walpole. 
Frederic  the  Great. 
Croker's  Boswell's  Johnson. 
Hallam's  Constitutional  History. 
Warren  Hastings^,  sewed,  bd.  cloth). 
The  Earl  of  Chatham  (Two  Essays). 


Ranke  and  Gladstone. 
Milton  and  Machiavelli. 
Lord  Bacon. 
Lord  dive. 

Lord  Byron,  and  the  Comic  Drama- 
tists of  the  Restoration. 


The  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings,  anno- 
tated by  S.  Hales.    Fcp.  8vo.  is.  bd. 


The  Essay  on  Lord  Clive,  annotated  by 
H.Courthope  Bowen.  Fcp.8vo.2j.6rf. 
SPEECHES.      People's  Edition,  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

LAYS  OF  ANCIENT  ROME,  &c.     illustrated  by  G.  Scharf.     Library 

Edition.     Fcp.  410.  103.  6d. 

Bijou  Edition,  i8mo.  zs.  bd.  gilt  top.     I       Popular  Edition,  Fcp.  410.  fid  sewed, 

u.  cloth. 

Illustrated  by  J.  R.  Weguelin.     Crown 

8vo.  y.  6d.  gilt  edges. 

Annotated  Edition,  Fcp.Svo.  if. sewed, 


Cabinet  Edition,  Post  8vo.  35.  6d.  is.  bd.  cloth. 

-  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS. 

People's  Edition.      Crown  8vo.  4?.  6d.  |      Library  Edition,  2  vols.  8vo.  21*. 
MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS  AND  SPEECHES. 


Popular  Edition.       Crown  8vo.  2s.  bd. 


Cabinet  Edition,  Post  8vo. 


Student's  Edition.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

-  SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  WRITINGS  OF  LORD  MACAULAY. 

Edited,  with  Notes,  by  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  G.  O.  TREVELYAN.    Crown  8vo.  65. 

THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF  LORD  MACAULAY.     By  tt)e  Right 

Hon.  Sir  G.  O.  TREVELYAN. 
Popular  Edition.     Crown.  8vo.  2s.  bd.         Cabinet  Edition,  2  vols.  Post  8vo.  T2.c. 


Student's  Edition.      Crown  8vo.  6s. 


Library  Edition,  2  vols.  8vo.  36.1 


MACDO3STALD    (George).— UNSPOKEN    SERMONS.      Three  Series. 
Crown  8vo.  3^.  bd.  each. 

-  THE  MIRACLES.  OF  OUR  LORD.     Crown  8vo.  3.r.  bd. 

A  BOOK  OF  STRIFE,  IN  THE  FORM  OF  THE  DIARY  OF  AN 

OLD  SOUL  :  Poems.     iamo.  6s. 

MACFARREN"  (Sir  G.  A.).— LECTURES  ON  HARMONY.    8vo.  us. 
ADDRESSES  AND  LECTURES.     Crown  8vo.  6s.  bd. 

MACKAIL  (J.  W.).— SELECT  EPIGRAMS  FROM  THE  GREEK  AN- 
THOLOGY.  With  a  Revised  Text,  Introduction,  Translation,  &c.    8vo.  i6s. 

MACLEOD  (Henry  D.).— THE  ELEMENTS  OF  BANKING.    Crown 
8vo.  3J.  bd. 

THE  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE  OF  BANKING.     Vol.  I.  8vo.  12*., 

Vol.  II.  i4j. 

THE  THEORY  OF  CREDIT.    8vo.    Vol.  \.\  New  Edition  in  ike  Press]; 

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PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &>  CO.         15 

McCULLOCH  ( J.  R.).— THE  DICTIONARY  OF  COMMERCE  and  Com- 
mercial Navigation.     With  n  Maps  and  30  Charts.    8vo.  63*. 

MACVINE  (John).— SIXTY-THREE  YEARS'  ANGLING,  from  the  Moun- 
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MALMESBURY  (The  Earl  of).— MEMOIRS  OF  AN  EX-MINISTER. 
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MANNERING   (G.  E.).-\V1TH   AXE  AND  ROPE  IN  THE    NEW 
ZEALAND  ALPS.     Illustrated.     8vo.  125.  bd. 

MANUALS  OF  CATHOLIC  PHILOSOPHY  (S/ony/wrst  Series). 


Logic.    By  Richard  F.  Clarke.    Crown 

8vo.  51. 
First  Principles   of  Knowledge.     By 

John  Rickaby.     Crown  8vo.  5*. 
Moral  Philosophy  (Ethics  and  Natural 

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8vo.  5*. 


General  Metaphysics.  By  John  Ricka- 
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Psychology.  By  Michael  Maher. 
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Natural  Theology.  By  Bernard 
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S.  Devas.    65.  6i/. 

MARTINEAU    (James).-HOURS    OF    THOUGHT    ON    SACRED 
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HOME  PRAYERS.     Crown  8vo.  y.  bd. 

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each. 

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MASON  (Agnes).— THE  STEPS  OF  THE  SUN  :  Daily  Readings  of  Prose. 

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MATTHEWS  (Brander).— A  FAM ] LY  TREE,  and  other  Stories.     Crown 

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MAUNDER'S  TREASURIES.    Fcp.  8vo.  fa.  each  volume 


Biographical  Treasury. 

Treasury  of  Natural  History.    With 

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Scientific  and  Literary  Treasury. 
Historical  Treasury. 
Treasury  of  Knowledge. 


The  Treasury  of  Bible  Knowledge.  By 

the  Rev.  J.  AYRE.  With  5  Maps, 
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8vo.  6s. 

The  Treasury  of  Botany.  Edited  by 
J.  LINDLEY  and  T.  MOORE.  With 
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2  vols. 


MAX     MULLER     (F.).— SELECTED     ESSAYS     ON     LANGUAGE, 
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—  THREE  LECTURES  ON  THE  SCIENCE  OF  LANGUAGE.     Cr. 
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HIBBERT  LECTURES  ON7  THE  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF 

RELIGION,  as  illustrated  by  the  Religions  of  India.     Crown  8vo.  75.  bd. 

[Continued. 


16       A  CATALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITERATURE 

MAX  MULLER  (P.)— INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  SCIENCE  OF  RE- 
LIGION ;  FourLectures  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution.    Crown  8vo.  js.  6d. 

-  NATURAL  RELIGION.     The  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered  before  the 
University  of  Glasgow  in  1888.     Crown  8vo.  105.  6d. 

-  PHYSICAL  RELIGION.     The  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered  before  the 
University  of  Glasgow  in  1890.     Crown  8vo.  10^.  6d. 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL  RELIGION  :  The  Gifford  Lectures  delivered 


before  the  University  of  Glasgow  in  1891.     Crown  8vo.  los.  6d. 
-  THE  SCIENCE  OF  THOUGHT.     8vo.  ais. 

THREE  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURES  ON  THE  SCIENCE  OF 


THOUGHT.     8vo.  2s.  6d. 

BIOGRAPHIES  OF  W*ORDS,  AND  THE  HOME  OF  THE  ARYAS. 

Crown  8vo.  js.  6d. 

A  SANSKRIT  GRAMMAR  FOR  BEGINNERS.     New  and  Abridged 

Edition.     By  A.  A.  MACDONELL.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

MAY  (Sir  Thomas  Erskine).— THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY 
OF  ENGLAND  since  the  Accession  of  George  III.     3  vols.  Crown  8vo.  i8s. 

MEADE  (L.  T.).— THE  O'DONNELLS  OF  INCHFAWN.     Crown  8vo.  6.5. 

DADDY'S  BOY.     With  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

DEB  AND  THE  DUCHESS.    Illust.  by  M.  E.  Edwards.    Cr.  8vo.  y.  6d. 

THE  BERESFORD  PRIZE.    Illustrated  by  M.  E.  Edwafds.    Cr.  8vo.  y. 

MEATH  (The  Earl    of).— SOCIAL   ARROWS:    Reprinted  Articles  on 
various  Social  Subjects.     Crown  8vo.  y. 

PROSPERITY  OR  PAUPERISM  ?    Physical,  Industrial,  and  Technical 

Training.     Edited  by  the  EARL  OF  MEATH.    8vo.  5*. 

MELVILLE  (G.  J.  Whyte).— Novels  by.     Crown  8vo.  is.  each,  boards  ; 
is.  6d.  each,  cloth. 


The  Gladiators. 
The  Interpreter. 
Good  for  Nothing. 


The  Queen's  Maries. 
Holmby  House. 
Kate  Coventry. 


Digby  Grand. 
General  Bounce. 


MENDELSSOHN".— THE  LETTERS  OF  FELIX  MENDELSSOHN. 
Translated  by  Lady  Wallace.  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  IQJ. 

MERFVALE  (Rev.  Chas.).— HISTORY  OF  THE  ROMANS  UNDER 
THE  EMPIRE.  Cabinet  Edition,  8  vols.  Crown  8vo.  48.?.  Popular  Edition, 
8  vols.  Crown  8vo.  3*.  6d.  each. 

THE  FALL  OF  THE  ROMAN  REPUBLIC :  a  Short  History  of  the 

Last  Century  of  the  Commonwealth.     I2mo.  75.  6d. 

GENERAL   HISTORY  OF   ROME   FROM   B.C.  753  TO  A.D.  476 


Cr.  8vo.  75.  6d. 
THE  ROMAN  TRIUMVIRATES.     With  Maps.     Fcp.  8vo.  zs.  6d. 


MILES  (W.  A.).— THE  CORRESPONDENCE  OF  WILLIAM  AUGUSTUS 
MILES  ON  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  1789-1817.     2  vols.  8vo.  321. 

MILL  (James).— ANALYSIS  OF  THE  PHENOMENA  OF  THE  HUMAN- 
MIND,     a  vols.  8vo.  o8s. 


PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &>  CO. 


MILL  (John  Stuart).— PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY. 
Library  Edition,  2  vols.  8vo.  30.?.          |     People's  Edition,  i  vol. Crown  8vo.  y.dJ. 

A  SYSTEM  OF  LOGIC.     Crown  8vo.  y.  €>d. 

ON  LIBERTY.     Crown  8vo.  is.  $d. 

ON  REPRESENTATIVE  GOVERNMENT.    Crown  8vo.  as. 

UTILITARIANISM.     8vo.  $y. 

EXAMINATION    OF    SIR    WILLIAM    HAMILTON'S    PHILO- 
SOPHY.   8vo.  i6s. 

NATURE,  THE  UTILITY  OF  RELIGION  AND  THEISM.    Three 

Essays,  8vo.  y. 

MOLESWORTH  (Mrs.).— MARRYING  AND  GIVING  IN  MARRIAGE : 

a  Novel.     Fcp.  8vo.  zs.  6d. 

SILVERTHORNS.     With  Illustrations  by  F.  Noel  Paton.  Cr.  8vo.  55. 

r—  THE  PALACE  IN  THE  GARDEN.     With  Illustrations.  Cr.  8vo.  y. 

THE  THIRD  MISS  ST.  QUENTIN.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

NEIGHBOURS.    With  Illustrations  by  M.  Ellen  Edwards.  Cr.  8vo.  6s. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  SPRING  MORNING.  With  Illustrations.  Cr.8vo.ss. 

MOORE    (Edward).— DANTE   AND    HIS    EARLY    BIOGRAPHERS. 

Crown  8vo.  45.  6d. 

MULHALL  (Michael  G.).— HISTORY  OF  PRICES  SINCE  THE  YEAR 
1850.  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

NANSEN  (Dr.  Fridtjof ).— THE  FIRST  CROSSING  OF  GREENLAND. 
With  5  Maps,  12  Plates,  and  150  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  2  vols.  8vo.  365. 

NAPIER.— THE  LIFE  OF  SIR  JOSEPH  NAPIER,  BART.,  EX-LORD 
CHANCELLOR  OF  IRELAND.  By  ALEX.  CHARLES  EWALD.  8vo.  ly. 

THE  LECTURES,  ESSAYS,  AND  LETTERS  OF  THE  RIGHT 

HON.  SIR  JOSEPH  NAPIER,  BART.     8vo.  izs.  6d. 

NESBIT  (E.).— LEAVES  OF  LIFE:  Verses.     Crown  8vo.  y. 

NEWMAN.— THE  LETTERS  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF  JOHN 
HENRY  NEWMAN  during  his  Life  in  the  English  Church.  With  a  brief 
Autobiographical  Memoir.  Edited  by  Anne  Mozley.  With  Portraits,  2  vols. 
8vo.  30*.  net. 

NEWMAN  (Cardinal).— Works  bye- 


Discourses  to  Mixed  Congregations. 

Cabinet    Edition,    Crown    8vo.   6s. 

Cheap  Edition,  y.  6d. 
Sermons  on  Various  Occasions.    Cr. 

8vo.  6s. 
The  Idea  of  a  University  defined  and 

illustrated.  Cabinet  Edition, Cr.  8vo. 

•js.     Cheap  Edition,  Cr.  8vo.  y.  6d. 
Historical  Sketches.   Cabinet  Edition, 

3  vols.  Crown  8vo.  6s.  each.     Cheap 

Edition,  3  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  y.  6d.  each. 


The  Arians  of  tbe  Fourth  Century. 

Cabinet    Edition,   Crown  8vo.    6s. 
Cheap  Edition,  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 
Select  Treatises  of  St.  Athanasius  in 
Controversy  with  the  Arians.  Freely 
Translated.      2    vols.    Crown   8vo. 

I5S- 

Discussions  and  Arguments  onVarious 
Subjects.  Cabinet  Edition,  Crown 
8vo.  6s.  Cheap  Edition,  Crown 
8vo.  3*.  6d. 

[Continued. 


20       A  CATALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITERATURE 

RICHARDSON  (Dr.  33.  W.).— NATIONAL  HEALTH.  A  Review  of 
the  Works  of  Sir  Edwin  Chachvick,  K.C.  B.  Crown  4?.  6d. 

RIVERS  (T.  and  T.  F.).— THE  MINIATURE  FRUIT  GARDEN  ;  or, 
The  Culture  of  Pyramidal  and  Bush  Fruit  Trees.  With  32  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.  4*. 

RIVERS  (T.).— THE  ROSE  AMATEUR'S  GUIDE.     Fcp.  8vo.  4?.  6d. 

ROBERTS  (Alexander).— GREEK  THE  LANGUAGE  OF  CHRIST 
AND  HIS  APOSTLES.  8vo.  i8.f. 

ROCKHILL  (W.  W.).— THE  LAND  OF  THE  LAMAS :  Notes  of  a 
Journey  through  China,  Mongolia,  and  Tibet.  With  Maps  and  Illustrations. 
8vo.  15$. 

ROO-ET  (John  Lewis).— A  HISTORY  OF  THE  'OLD  WATER 
COLOUR  '  SOCIETY.  2  vols.  Royal  8vo.  42*. 

ROGET  (Peter  M.).— THESAURUS  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS  AND 
PHRASES.  Crown  8vo.  los.  6d. 

RONALDS  (Alfred).— THE  FLY-FISHER'S  ETYMOLOGY.  With  20 
Coloured  Plates.  8vo.  145, 

ROSSETTI  (Maria  Franceses,).— A  SHADOW  OF  DANTE :  being  an 
Essay  towards  studying  Himself,  his  World,  and  his  Pilgrimage.  Cr.  8vo.  105. 6d. 

RUSSELL.— A  LIFE  OF  LORD  JOHN  RUSSELL.  By  SPENCER  WALPOLE. 
2  vols.  8vo.  36.5.  Cabinet  Edition,  2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  125. 

SEEBOHM  (Frederick).  — THE  OXFORD  REFORMERS  — JOHN 
COLET,  ERASMUS,  AND  THOMAS  MORE.  8vo.  145. 

THE  ENGLISH  VILLAGE  COMMUNITY  Examined  in  its  Re- 
lations to  the  Manorial  and  Tribal  Systems,  &c.  13  Maps  and  Plates.  8vo.  \6s. 

THE  ERA  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REVOLUTION.     With  Map. 


Fcp.  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

SEWELL  (Elizabeth  M.).— STORIES  AND  TALES.     Crown  8vo.  is.  6d. 
each,  cloth  plain;  as.  6d.  each,  cloth  extra,  gilt  edges: — 

Amy  Herbert.  Katharine  Ashton.  Gertrude. 

The  Earl's  Daughter.  Margaret  Percival.  Ivors. 

The  Experience  of  Life.  Laneton  Parsonage.  Home  Life. 

A  Glimpse  of  the  World.  Ursula.  After  Life. 
Cleve  Hall. 

SHAKESPEARE.— BOWDLER'S  FAMILY  SHAKESPEARE,    i  vol.  8vo. 

With  36  Woodcuts,  145.,  or  in  6  vols.  Fcp.  8vo.  2is. 
OUTLINES    OF    THE    LIFE    OF  SHAKESPEARE.       By  J.    O. 

HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS.     With  Illustrations.     2  vols.     Royal  8vo.  _£i  is. 

SHAKESPEARE'S  TRUE  LIFE.     By  JAMES  WALTER.     With  500 

Illustrations.     Imp.  8vo.  21.5. 
THE  SHAKESPEARE  BIRTHDAY  BOOK.     By  MARV  F.  DUNBAR. 

32mo.  is.  6d.  cloth.     With  Photographs,  32mo.  5.5.     Drawing -Room  Edition, 

with  Photographs,  Fcp.  8vo.  105.  6d. 

SHORT  (T.  V.).— SKETCH  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF 
ENGLAND  to  the  Revolution  of  1688.     Crown  8vo.  75.  6d. 


PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &>  CO.          21 


SILVER  LIBRARY,  The.— Crown  8vo.  price  33.  6d.  each  volume. 

KSRIYALK'S  (Dean)  History  of  the 
Romans  under  the  Empire.    8  vols. 


BAKER'S  (Sir  S.  W.)  Eight  Years  in 

Ceylon.    With  6  Illustrations. 

—  Rifle  and  Hound  in  Ceylon. 

With  6  Illustrations. 
BARING-GOULD'S  (S.)  Curious  Myths 

of  the  Middle  Ages. 
BRASSEY'S  (Lady)  A  Voyage  in  the 

'  Sunbeam  '.    With  66  Illustrations. 
CLODD'S  (E.)  Story  of  Creation :    a 

Plain  Account  of  Evolution.     With 

77  Illustrations. 
DOYLE'S  (A.  Conan)  Micah  Clarke  :  a 

Tale  of  Monmouth's  Rebellion. 
FROUDE'S  (J.  A.)  Short  Studies  on 

Great  Subjects.    4  vols. 

Caesar :  a  Sketch. 

Thomas  Carlyle :  a  History 

of   his   Life.      1795-1835.     2  vols. 

1834-1881.     2  vols. 

The  Two  Chiefs  of  Dunboy : 


an    Irish    Romance    of    the    Last 

Century. 
GLEIG'S  (Rev.  G.  R.)  Life  of  the  Duke 

of  Wellington.    With  Portrait. 
HAGGARD'S  (H.  R.)  She  :  A  History  of 

Adventure.     32  Illustrations. 
Allan    Quatermain.      With 

20  Illustrations. 

Colonel    Quaritch,  V.C. :   a 


Tale  of  Country  Life. 

Cleopatra.      With  29  Full- 


page  Illustrations. 
Beatrice. 


HOWITT'S  (W.)  Visits  to  Remarkable 

Places.     80  Illustrations. 
JEFFERIES'  (R.)  The    Story   of   My 

Heart.    With  Portrait. 
Field  and  Hedgerow.    Last 

Essays  of.     With  Portrait. 

Red  Deer.    With  17  Illust. 

KNIGHT'S    (E.    F.)    Cruise    of    the 

'Alerte,'    a    Search    for   Treasure. 

With  2  Maps  and  23  Illustrations. 
LEES  (J.   A.)  and  CLUTTERBUCK'S 

(W.  J.)  B.C.  1887.    British  Columbia. 

75  Illustrations. 
MACAULAY'S  (Lord)  Essays— Lays  of 

Ancient    Rome.     In   i   vol.    With 

Portrait    and    Illustrations    to    the 

'  Lays '. 
MACLEOD'S  (H.  D.)  The  Elements  of 

Banking. 
MARSHMAN'S  (J.  C.)  Memoirs  of  Sir 

Henry  Havelock. 


MILL'S  (J.  S.)  Principles  of  Political 
Economy. 

—  System  of  Logic. 

NEWMAN'S     (Cardinal)      Historical 

Sketches.    3  vols. 
Apologia  Fro  Vita  Sua. 

—  Callista :  a  Tale  of  the  Third 
Century. 

—  Loss  and  Gain :  a  Tale. 
Essays,   Critical    and   His- 
torical.   2  vols. 

An  Essay  on  the  Develop- 
ment of  Christian  Doctrine. 

The  Arians   of  the   Fourth 


Century. 

Verses   on    Various    Occa- 
sions. 

Difficulties  felt  by  Anglicans 


in  Catholic  Teaching  Considered. 
2  vols. 

The  Idea  of  a  University 

denned  and  Illustrated. 

Biblical  and  Ecclesiastical 

Miracles. 

Discussions  and  Arguments 

on  Various  Subjects. 

Grammar  of  Assent. 

The  Via  Media  of  the  An- 
glican Church.  2  vols. 

— — Parochial  and  Plain  Ser- 
mons. 8  vols. 

Selection   from   '  Parochial 


and  Plain  Sermons'. 
Discourses  Addressed  to 

Mixed  Congregations. 
Present  Position  of  Ca- 


tholics in  England. 
Sermons  bearing  upon  Sub- 
jects of  the  Day. 

PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY'S  (C.)  Snap :  a 
Legend  of  the  Lone  Mountains.  13 
Illustrations. 

STANLEY'S  (Bishop)  Familiar  History 
of  Birds.  With  160  Illustrations. 

WOOD'S  (Rev.  J.  G.)  Petland  Re- 
visited. With  33  Illustrations. 

—  Strange  Dwellings.  With  60 
Illustrations. 

—  Out  of  Doors.   With  n  Illus- 
trations. 


22     »A  CA  TALOGUE  OF  BOOKS  IN  GENERAL  LITER  A  TURE 

SMITH  (R.  Bosworth).— CARTHAGE  AND  THE  CARTHAGINIANS. 
Maps,  Plans,  &c.  Crown  8vo.  dr. 

STANLEY  (E.).— A  FAMILIAR  HISTORY  OF  BIRDS.  With  160  Wood- 
cuts. Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

STEPHEN  (Sir  James).  —  ESSAYS  IN  ECCLESIASTICAL  BIO- 
GRAPHY. Crown  8vo.  ^s.  6d. 

STEPHENS  (H.  Morse).— A  HISTORY  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLU- 
TION, svols.  8vo.  VoL  I.  i8s.  Vol.  II.  i8j.  [.Vol.  III.  in  the  press. 

STEVENSON  (Robt.  Louis).— A  CHILD'S  GARDEN  OF  VERSES. 

Small  Fcp.  8vo.  y. 

THE  DYNAMITER.     Fcp.  8vo.  is.  sewed,  u.  6d.  cloth. 

-  STRANGE  CASE  OF  DR.  JEKYLL  AND  MR.  HYDE.     Fcp.  8vo. 

is.  sewed,  is.  6d.  cloth, 

STEVENSON  (Robert  Louis)  and  OSBOURNE  (Lloyd).— THE 
WRONG  BOX.  Crown  8vo.  y. 

STOCK  (St.  George).— DEDUCTIVE  LOGIC.    Fcp.  8vo.  y.  6d. 

STRONG  (Herbert  A.),LOGEMAN  ( Willem  S.)  and  WHEELER 
(B.  I.).— INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
LANGUAGE.  8vo.  ioj.  6<t. 

STUTFIELD  (H.).— THE  BRETHREN  OF  MOUNT  ATLAS  being  the 
First  Part  of  an  African  Theosophical  Story.  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

SULLY  (James).— THE  HUMAN   MIND :   a  Text-Book   of  Psychology. 

2  VOlS.  8VO.  2IJ. 

OUTLINES  OF   PSYCHOLOGY.      With  Special   Reference  to  the 


Theory  of  Education.     8vo.  izs.  6d. 

THE    TEACHER'S     HANDBOOK    OF    PSYCHOLOGY,    on    the 

Basis  of '  Outlines  of  Psychology '.     Crown  8vo.  6s.  6d. 

SUPERNATURAL  RELIGION;  an  Inquiry  into  the  Reality  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion. 3  vols.  8vo.  36*. 

SYMES  (J.  E.).— PRELUDE  TO  MODERN  HISTORY:  being  a  Brief 
Sketch  of  the  World's  History  from  the  Third  to  the  Ninth  Century.  With  5 
Maps.  Crown  8vo.  zs.  6d. 

TAYLOR  (Colonel  Meadows).— A  STUDENT'S  MANUAL  OF  THE 
HISTORY  OF  INDIA,  from  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Present  Time.  Crown 
8vo.  7-r.  6d. 

THOMPSON  (D.  Greenleaf).— THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL:  an  Intro- 
duction to  the  Practical  Sciences.  8vo.  IOT.  6d. 

A  SYSTEM  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.     2  vols.  8vo.  365. 

THE  RELIGIOUS  SENTIMENTS  OF  THE  HUMAN  MIND.     8vo. 

•js.  6d. 

SOCIAL  PROGRESS  :  an  Essay.     8vo.  75.  6d. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FICTION  IN  LITERATURE  :  an  Essay. 


Crown  8vo.  dr. 


PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &•  CO.         23 

THREE  IN  NORWAY.  By  Two  of  THEM.  With  a  Map  and  59  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.  as.  boards  ;  zs.  6d.  cloth. 

TOYNBEE  (Arnold).— LECTURES  ON  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVO 
LUTION  OF  THE  i8th  CENTURY  IN  ENGLAND.  8vo.  los.  6rf. 

TREVELYAN  (Sir  O-.  O.,  Bart.).— THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 

LORD  MACAU  LAY. 

Popular  Edition.     Crown  8vo.  zs.  6d.  I      Cabinet  Edition,  2  vols.  Cr.  8vo.  izs. 
Student's  Edition.     Crown  8vo.  dr.  Library  Edition,  2  vols.  8vo.  36.?. 

-  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.     Library 
Edition,  8vo.  i8s.     Cabinet  Edition,  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

TROLLOPE  (Anthony).— THE  WARDEN.     Cr.  8vo.  is.  bds.,  is.  6d.  cl. 

-  BARCHESTER  TOWERS.     Crown  8vo.  is.  boards,  is.  6d.  cloth. 

VILLE  (Gr.).— THE  PERPLEXED  FARMER:  How  is  he  to  meet  Alien 
Competition  ?  Crown  8vo.  y. 

VIRGIL-.  —  PUBLI  VERGILI  MARONIS  BUCOLICA,  GEORGICA, 
^ENEIS;  the  Works  of  VIRGIL.  Latin  Text,  with  English  Commentary  and 
Index.  By  B.  H.  KENNEDY.  Crown  8vo.  IQS.  6d. 

-  THE  .ENEID  OF  VIRGIL.      Translated  into   English  Verse.      By 
John  Conington.     Crown  8vo.  6.r. 

THE   POEMS  OF    VIRGIL.      Translated  into   English   Prose.     By 


John  Conington.     Crown  8vo.  6s. 

THE  ECLOGUES  AND  GEORGICS  OF  VIRGIL.     Translated  from 


the  Latin  by  J.  W.  Mackail.    Printed  on  Dutch  Hand-made  Paper.-    i6mo.  $s. 

WAKEMA3ST  (H.  O.)  and  HASSALL  (A.).— ESSAYS  INTRODUC- 
TORY TO  THE  STUDY  OF  ENGLISH  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY. 
Edited  by  H.  O.  WAKEMAN  and  A.  HASSALL.  Crown  8vo.  dr. 

WALKER  (A.  Campbell-).— THE  CORRECT  CARD;  or,  How  to  Play 
at  Whist ;  a  Whist  Catechism.  Fcp.  8vo.  zs.  6d. 

WALPOLE  (Spencer).— HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  FROM  THE  CON- 
CLUSION OF  THE  GREAT  WAR  IN  1815  to  1858.  Library  Edition.  5 
vols.  8vo.  j£4  IQS.  Cabinet  Edition.  6  vols.  Crown  8vo.  6s.  each. 

WELLINGTON.— LIFE  OF  THE  DUKE  OF  WELLINGTON.  By  the 
Rev.  G.  R.  GLEIG.  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

WENDT  (Ernest  Emil).— PAPERS  ON  MARITIME  LEGISLATION, 
with  a  Translation  of  the  German  Mercantile  Laws  relating  to  Maritime  Com- 
merce. Royal  8vo.  £i  us.  6d. 

WEYMAN"  (Stanley  J.).— THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  WOLF  :  a  Romance. 
Crown  8vo.  dr. 

WHATELY  (E.  Jane).— LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF  ARCH- 
BISHOP WHATELY.  With  Portrait.  Crown  8vo.  IQS.  6d. 

WHATELY  (Archbishop).— ELEMENTS  OF  LOGIC.    Cr.  8vo.  4*.  6d. 

-  ELEMENTS  OF  RHETORIC.     Crown  8vo.  4?.  6d. 
LESSONS  ON  REASONING.     Fcp.  8vo.  is.  6d. 

—  BACON'S  ESSAYS,  with  Annotations.     8vo.  los.  6d. 

WILCOCKS  (J.  C.).— THE  SEA  FISHERMAN.  Comprising  the  Chief 
Methods  of  Hook  and  Line  Fishing  in  the  British  and  other  Seas,  and  Remarks 
on  Nets,  Boats,  and  Boating.  Profusely  Illustrated.  Crown  8vo.  dr. 


24  BOOKS  PUBLISHED  BY  MESSRS.  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO. 


WIIiTjICH  (Charles  M.).— POPULAR  TABLES  for  giving  Information 
for  ascertaining  the  value  of  Lifehold,  Leasehold,  and  Church  Property,  the 
Public  Funds,  &c.  Edited  by  H.  BENCE  JONES.  Crown  8vo.  IDS.  6d. 

WILLOUGHBir  (Captain  Sir  John  C.).— EAST  AFRICA  AND  ITS 
BIG  GAME.  Illustrated  by  G.  D.  Giles  and  Mrs.  Gordon  Hake.  Royal  8vo.  zis. 

WITT  (Prof.)— "Works  by.    Translated  by  Frances  Younghusband. 

-  THE  TROJAN  WAR.     Crown  8vo.  2s. 

-  MYTHS  OF  HELLAS;  or,  Greek  Tales.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 
THE  WANDERINGS  OF  ULYSSES.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 


-  THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND  ;  being  the  Story  of 
Xenophon's  '  Anabasis  '.     With  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

WOLFF  (Henry  W.).—  RAMBLES  IN  THE  BLACK  FOREST.     Crown 
8vo.  75.  6d. 

THE  WATERING  PLACES  OF  THE  VOSGES.    With  Map.    Crown 


8vo.  45.  6d. 

THE  COUNTRY  OF  THE  VOSGES.     With  a  Map.     8vo.  iss. 


WOOD  (Rev.  J.  O-.).— HOMES  WITHOUT  HANDS  ;  a  Description  of  the 
Habitations  of  Animals.  With  140  Illustrations.  8vo.  73.  net, 

INSECTS  AT  HOME;  a  Popular  Account  of  British  Insects,  their 

Structure,  Habits,  and  Transformations.  With  700  Illustrations.  8vo.  js.  net. 

—  INSECTS  ABROAD  ;   a   Popular  Account  of  Foreign  Insects,   their 
Structure,  Habits,  and  Transformations.    With  600  Illustrations.    8vo.  js.  net. 

BIBLE  ANIMALS  ;  a  Description  of  every  Living  Creature  mentioned 

in  the  Scriptures.     With  112  Illustrations.     8vo.  js.  net. 

STRANGE  DWELLINGS  ;  abridged  from  '  Homes  without  Hands  '. 

With  60  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

—  OUT  OF  DOORS  ;  a  Selection  of  Original  Articles  on  Practical  Natural 
History.     With  n  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 

PETLAND  REVISITED.     With  33  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 


WORDSWORTH    (Bishop    Charles).— ANNALS    OF    MY    EARLY 
LIFE,  1806-1846.     8vo.  15*. 

WYLIE  (J.  H.).— HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND   UNDER   HENRY  THE 
FOURTH.     Crown  8vo.  Vol.  I.  ior.  6d.  ;  Vol.  II. 

ZELLER  (Dr.  E.).— HISTORY  OF  ECLECTICISM  IN  GREEK  PHILO- 
SOPHY.    Translated  by  Sarah  F.  Alley ne.     Crown  8vo.     IGJ.  6d. 

-  THE  STOICS,  EPICUREANS,  AND  SCEPTICS.      Translated  by 
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2  vols.  Crown  8vo.  301. 

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